


Uncanny Omens

by YesterDarling



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: 6000 year old slow burn, Alternate Universe - Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Crossover, Good Omens AU, Multi, Near Death Experiences, Saving the World, Slow Burn, TRC Big Bang 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:13:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 35
Words: 40,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25322926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YesterDarling/pseuds/YesterDarling
Summary: The Forces of Heaven and Hell have always assumed that the world would end. More specifically, they always assumed the world would precisely end on a Saturday evening, just a few days after the Antichrist’s birthday. The Armies are forming, the Four Horsemen have been drawn out, and the Antichrist is coming into his full power. Yet not everyone longs for Armageddon. Adam and Ronan - an Angel and Demon living in rural Virginia - most certainly don’t want it to; not when Earth has so many libations that they’ve come to enjoy. Besides, Armageddon without humans having a say in the matter wouldn’t be fair, would it? With their livelihoods and the lives of Mankind on the line, they plot to throw a wrench in the Divine Plan. It’d go far easier if anyone knew where the Antichrist was, though.The Raven Cycle Big Bang 2020, Team 2Beta Read by the amzingghostangelArt byDrawfulNeutralandgthechangeling
Relationships: Richard Gansey III/Blue Sargent, Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 19
Kudos: 21
Collections: TRC Big Bang 2020





	1. In The Beginning

### IN THE BEGINNING

ONE WOULD NOT HAVE SAID THE DAY WAS NICE.

After all, there was no standard for what was “nice” and what was not yet, although the banishment of Man from Eden and the newly created storm clouds playing in the horizon threatened to set a standard that “nice” could be compared against.

The Angel of the Eastern Gate perched himself above it, watching as Man made its way to places far from the garden, the only source by which to track them a mere flaming sword.

He'd seen other Angels retreat to shelter as the storm clouds approached, yet he stayed behind. It'd be a shame to not experience the first rainfall.

A snake slithered next to him, scales turning to feathers turning to fewer-feathers and skin.

"Damn. Hot mess," the ex-snake retorted.

"Sorry?" Asked the Angel, who had taken to calling himself ‘Adam’ in Man's honor.

"I said," he repeated incredulously, "That was a hot mess."

"You're not wrong," replied Adam, curtly, tearing his eyes away from the demon's dark curls and ebony wings.

The demon continued regardless, eyes glinting in bemusement of Adam. "That was the first bad thing they actually did. Probably could've gone with a slap on the wrist. Would've been easier. I mean, fuck," he sniffed, "Good and evil both exist. Better that they know the difference."

"It can't be better. If it was, we'd be involved and you wouldn't. So it has to be bad."

"Listen. I was just told to start trouble. That's it," said the demon. He was called something else before, and was now named Reginum, but like the storm clouds on the horizon there were new ones forming in his mind.

"Okay, but you're a demon," Adam countered. "That's what you do. Nothing new. I mean, it's in your nature."

"But They made it _too_ easy." Reginum finally let his thoughts loose with a huff. "If They didn't want anyone to eat apples, they should've put them literally fucking out of reach. They wanted it to happen. They're fucking planning something. Wonder what."

"Shoot, I don't," sniffed the angel. "They know what They're doing. Better not guess. It's not meant to be known; it’s meant to be unknown. Uncanny to everyone except Them. All that we’re meant to know is that all is supposed to be Right, and those who do Wrong are punished."

The two sat in silence, only a crack from the first thundercloud braving the need to break it.

"You had some kind of flaming sword, right?"

Adam froze, his ears going pink. "Uhh..." he drawled, intelligently.

"Thought so. That was badass. Where'd it go?"

"Well..."

"Lost it?"

"Gave it away."

Reginum stared at Adam. "You're kidding me."

"I had to, alright!" He snapped. "They'll get more use of it. I mean, she's already pregnant, and there are things out there they can't fight. Gosh knows I can, so I told them they could have it."

A smirk curled across the demon's face. "Well shit."

"Do you think I did the wrong thing?" Adam ran a hand through his hair, glancing to Man disappearing into the desert as he pondered it. Already he got the feeling he'd be putting others before himself. He prayed it wasn't wrong to do.

"Calm the Hell down, Angel." Bite meddled with Reginum's honeyed words as if he couldn't decide which one to use. He chose bite. "If you were capable of doing the wrong thing, which you're not, you'd be down _there_ with the rest of us fuckwads."

"Well... I guess you're right," he admitted.

Storm clouds frolicked closer, and the two of them stared as they drew closer. That is, until Reginum broke the silence once more.

"Do you know what would be bad?"

"Well, sounds like you're saying it anyway."

"What if you ended up doing the bad thing, and I ended up doing the good one? Would that be fucked up or what?"

"Fucked up, and we'd both be in for it."

"Then I guess we'd better pray we got it right, Angel."

The rain began to crash against their faces, Reginum's protestful hissing fading to gratitude as Adam's wings shielded him from the downpour.

Adam let the storm drench him. He refused to miss it.

* * *

**UNCANNY OMENS**

A Recollection of the Series of Events in the past two decades written in strict accordance with

THE PROPHECIES OF GWENLLIAN GLENDOWER, DAUGHTER OF THE RAVEN KING

and

THE INTERPRETATIONS OF THESE PROPHECIES BY THE PSYCHICS OF 300 FOX WAY

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello lovelies! It's been a long time since I've posted anything. I'm really proud to present to you Uncanny Omens for the 2020 Raven Cycle Big Bang!
> 
> I've been sitting on this concept since last summer, and with a lot of hard work and love, it's been brought to life.
> 
> Just want to give a thanks to my fantastic beta reader, ghostangel who I really couldn't have done this without her critique and help. There's a lot in here that I was stumped on until she pulled me out of it!
> 
> We have some stunning art by [Drawful Neutral](http://drawfulneutral.tumblr.com) that goes with this piece! I'm really thrilled with how it looks! We also have some special surprise art by [Gthechangeling](http://gthechangeling.tumblr.com) coming soon, so keep an eye out for that as well :)
> 
> Also want to give a shoutout to the mod team, who I loved working with. My year was really hectic, but I could not have asked for better people to help overhaul this event.
> 
> I hope that you enjoy this fic even half as much as I enjoyed creating it.
> 
> With love, Yessie


	2. Dramatis Personae

### DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  
**SUPERNATURAL BEINGS**

  
GOD  
God

METATRON  
The Voice of God

DECLAN  
An Archangel

MATTHEW  
An Angel

ADAM  
An Angel, collector of books, and fixer of cars

SATAN  
A Fallen Angel; the Adversary

WHELK  
A likewise Fallen Angel and Overseer of Hell

PROKOPENKO  
A Fallen Angel and Duke of Hell

OPAL  
A Sometimes-Willing Ear

RONAN  
An Angel who did not so much fall as have the wind stolen from beneath his wings

**APOCALYPTIC HORSEPERSONS**  
  
PIPER  
War

COLIN  
Famine

LAUMONIER  
Pollution

DEATH  
Death

**HUMANS**  
  
OWAIN GLENDOWER  
King of Wales, protector of prophecies

GWENLLIAN GLENDOWER  
A prophet

NEEVE MULLIN  
An insurgent

MAURA SARGENT  
A psychic

CALLA LILY JOHNSON  
A psychometrist

PERSEPHONE POLDMA  
A medium

BLUE SARGENT  
An occultist, feminist, and professional amplifier

NOAH CZERNY  
A skater turned ghost turned medium

JOSEPH KAVINSKY  
A time-bomb

NADJA KAVINSKY  
A Bystander

ANATOLY KAVINSKY  
A fuse

MRS. GANSEY  
A mother

MR. Gansey  
A father  
  
**THE RAVEN BOYS**

GANSEY  
The Antichrist

HENRY CHENG  
A boy who's native tongue is thought and his thoughts, dreams

and

CHAINSAW  
A Raven


	3. Act One, Scene One

### ACT ONE, SCENE ONE

  
SUMMER NIGHTS IN VIRGINIA are hot, often sticky things. That is, unless you are used to them. If you’re from the Northern throes of Canada or Siberia, or even more Southern-Northern throes such as Pennsylvania, Virginia can feel like a sauna, or more accurately, a broiler. If you’re from the Southern lands of Ecuador or Australia, you may find Virginia to be comfortable, if not a bit chilly. It’s all relativity, and it only ever feels right if you live there.

It was for this reason that even the two Demons spawning in the abandoned graveyard of an abandoned church found themselves crawling in their skin. Demons tend to be crawling with all sorts of unpleasantries, but it was difficult for them to enjoy in this state.

“Shit. It’s fucking freezing up here,” groaned Prokopenko, cracking his neck with a satisfying crunch that would sicken the stomach of any human. 

As far as Demons went, Prokopenko was one that seemed younger, though like all Demons he’d been there since the Beginning. He looked the way you would expect one to look when a human falsely called themselves a Devil - handsome in a dark and sinister way. Jet black hair and eyes to match. The leather jacket he always wore was doing him no good - or perhaps we should say no bad - as he’d given up the sleeves in favor of an edgier and more wearable-in-the-heat-of-Hell look. Now, he looked wistfully at his arms and wished he’d suffered just a bit more. Sleeves would’ve made the cold tolerable now.

Whelk, the second demon, lit a cigarette as he watched Prokopenko in amusement. “ _Acta non verba_ ,” he retorted.

Whelk was ever his cohort’s opposite; a Demon that clearly oozed evil in a different way. He was every cruel teacher and black-hearted business man and rude customer in line at Macy’s rolled into one convenient package. 

With the same distaste of a CEO scoffing at customer service, he flicked the ash away only to have to dust it off a picnic basket, which was hanging off his arm in a way too daunting for a picnic basket to be. Soft whispers of fabric rustled inside, and he held it at more of an arm’s length. 

Satan, how he hated this job. “Any idea of when he’ll be here?” he asked.

“Five minutes ago,” gruffed Prokopenko, snatching the cigarette from Whelk. “Hate the bastard. Fuck. Why’d it have to be him?”

“Because they think he’s up to it. I wouldn’t trust him with more than a temptation anymore, though.”

An engine roared from down the road, and the demons could hear the scream of a guitar as the mechanical cacophony neared them.

“Too late to change it,” huffed the younger demon. “Here comes the dick himself now.”

  
THERE’S ANOTHER PHRASE that fits the type of being that Ronan was a little too on the nose: Speed Demon. 

Currently, Ronan found himself doing the same thing he did every time he was behind the wheel - Green Day wailing along to him hurtling down a Virginia highway at speeds that only professional drivers and street racers dared touch. Street racer was likely more applicable in this situation; everything about him seemed to suggest it, from the void-black car to the void-black tattoo oozing across his back and up his neck. Dark and buzzed hair, and skin that’d be called deathly pale if he could die in the first place. He had a face with angles that threatened to cut, and the uncanny snake-like pupils set in his ice-blue glare created a constant invitation to stay away and an endless need to know more about him. It was a deadly combination when he drove, for the BMW itself seemed to whisper _come here and just try to outrun me_.

With a befittingly-ungodly screech of tires, Ronan drifted into the graveyard’s parking lot, stopping just short of two sets of feet. Neither of them flinched, not that Ronan expected them to. The door flew ajar. “Whelk. Proko,” he regarded, throwing it shut with the same fervor he’d used to open it.

“All hail Satan,” Whelk corrected politely, except all things polite had vanished from the greeting. The air was still a muggy Virginia night, but the atmosphere was rapidly dropping into single digits.

“Yeah. Right. What did you need me for?” Ronan asked, waving the correction aside.

“Forgetting something, as always, Reginum.” The Demon’s brows furrowed at the jab, not that there was anything else he expected. “Deeds of the day. Quickly, gentlemen.”

“I tempted a politician’s daughter,” Prokopenko volunteered. “I put envy into her mind, told her that she should go to parties and smoke coke with her friends. One time wouldn’t ruin her reputation. Like hell; daddy will have to pay to cover it up, and they’ll both join us soon.”

Satisfied, Whelk continued. “I’ve tempted a school teacher; given him wrath. The students in his class don’t deserve the rage he’ll exact upon them. He’ll come to us quickly as well.”

“Great. Fan-fucking-tastic work,” Ronan chided. “I did something with school, too. All of the grading services?” He looked around, waiting for a reaction but going on as soon as he realized he wasn’t getting one. “Down for the next day and a half.” The delayed reaction he’d hoped for never came.

“That’s your temptation?” Prokopenko asked, brows unfurrowing in favor of a judging glare.

“Satan, you’re both so old school,” he huffed, kicking at the dirt. “A whole sector of public schools with grades and assignments gone? Everyone’s going to flip their shit. It’s about the quantity. And Hell knows I’ve got that taken care of.”

Whelk let out a sigh. Was this all their sole Earth insurgent was good for? He’d half a mind to do the job himself, but his utter lack of taste for the task at hand held him back. He opted to hold the basket out to Ronan instead, the nature of the job weighty on them all to where it didn’t even need to be said with words.

“You’ve gotta be shitting me,” whispered Ronan.

“I shit you not,” Prokopenko snarked back, crossing his arms in bemusement.

Ronan didn’t dare to take the basket, not yet. “You mean it’s already fucking happening?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re saying I have to be the one to…”

“Yes.”

“Shit. Why?” he asked, rubbing the back of his neck in a way that meant distaste but he hoped would translate to the other demons as humility. As if any of them had that to begin with.

“All the world’s a stage. It’s your role, Ronan. A chance in the limelight. Demons would give up their own limbs to be doing your job tonight,” Whelk chided. “Someone’s limbs, at least.”

“Some starring roll, then.”

“Listen, Ronan, just take care of it.” Whelks words came out somewhere between a sigh and a growl. “Times are changing; you keep saying it yourself.”

“Yeah, but I never fucking said the world was going to end.”

“You didn’t,” Prokopenko interjected, taking the basket from Whelk and sauntering around where Ronan stood. He waved it about menacingly, which would ordinarily be an amusing sight, but the knowledge of what was inside dampened the conversation to the point it was practically soaking with Ronan’s dread. He just hoped Proko wouldn’t turn the damned thing upside-down. “They said it the minute They cast us out. They brought it about. We’re going to finish it.” 

With the basket suddenly thrust in his face, Ronan had no choice but to take it.

It weighed more than the eight pounds it actually did. It felt more like the weight of humanity being thrust into his reluctant grip.

“Sign for it.” Whelk thrust the invoice at him. Balancing the basket and the clipboard, Ronan etched a sigil of wings and fangs upon the signature line as the other Demon added, “You’ll get the instructions soon. And cheer up; our glory finally comes with the End of Days”

“And you’re the tool that makes the cogs of this glorious plan work, Ronan.”

“Glorious. Tool,” Ronan echoed. “Yeah. Right.” he took a step back from them before turning it into a saunter-disguised retreat back to the BMW. “Guess I’d better get this show on the road… Later, fuckwads,” he called before buckling the basket into the seat.

He let the wheels screech as the car pulled away. They screamed that he wanted to get out of there, and they weren’t lying.

Once far out of earshot - it didn’t take long to get there with Ronan’s habits - Ronan blessed to himself, knuckles white as he gripped the steering wheel. On the radio, Lit griped about Ronan’s problems: _It’s no surprise to me; I am my own worst enemy_. Big words had finally caught up with him.

He cut off his swearing as soon as the radio static cut through the CD. Ronan gulped before forcing a grin onto his face. It was a terrifying sight, if there were any other drivers on the road and if he had been driving slow enough for anyone to see, but all Satan would hear was optimism over the Diabolical plan.

YOU’VE CERTAINLY EARNED THIS ONE, RONAN

“Thank you, your Lordship,” Ronan warbled through clenched teeth.

WE KNOW THAT YOU WILL DO US PROUD. YOU HAVE NO CHOICE.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Lay it on me. What am I doing?”

As per always, they didn’t tell him what he was doing. They never told him nor anyone. He just knew all of a sudden. And so he veered onto the exit ramp towards the Convent, hand on the basket so that momentum wouldn’t hurt anyone. Could you even kill the Antichrist? He wasn’t sure he wanted to be the one to find out.

The baby started to wail. He opened the lid, peering at the baby inside. Just a little boy with dark-brown hair, ever so normal looking. It was almost unfathomable.

“I know,” Ronan sighed. “Fuck. Let’s just get you to your new home.”

THERE’S AN AUTO GARAGE just far enough out of Washington DC to be in Virginia. It’s the type that seems like any other one that can be found in New York or California or Anytown USA, at least until you get close to it. There are no workers, no autobody specialists, no mechanics, no clerks. There isn’t an old Civic in the bay or a recalled Subaru waiting outside. Just a few cars that seem like they shouldn’t run and an owner that feels uncannily misplaced.

Many a customer that drove away with a beat-up loaner or a referral to Boyd’s could attest to the fact that Adam - owner of Parrish Autobody and Repair - seemed like someone that didn’t seem like a mechanic. Or, at least, he was something more on the side. 

He was too young, for a start - Adam only worked on problem cases. Anything that he found to be a challenge was allowed to be driven through the garage doors onto the lift. At the age he appeared to be, there was no way he could afford to pick and choose his work. He didn’t fit the mechanic typecast, either - high-cheekbones and soft, dirt-blonde curls that somehow managed to stay grime-free, and startlingly-azure eyes that ruined the otherwise sepia aesthetic. The only things that made him fit in were his farmer’s tan and the infestation of freckles running across the bridge of his nose.

They couldn’t argue with the results, though. Every problem car that went onto the lift was returned to its owner blessed with another five years on it’s engine life.

Currently, Adam was pulling his latest project - a Porsche that wasn’t usually a part of his repertoire - back into the garage out of testing it. It was running far smoother than it had been over the weekend, but it still needed work. He gave it one last pat before making the short journey back to the tiny one-story that most would call too close to the garage for comfort. He was sure his pizza delivery would arrive soon. It would be a shame to miss it. 

What surprised him wasn’t the fact that the pizza was untimely early, but the fact that it wasn’t the usual Nino’s delivery person. 

It wasn’t a person at all. 

“Declan,” Adam said, startle clear in his voice, “What a surprise. Come in.”

“No need,” Declan said, waving a hand. The pizza box in his hand grew unsteady, yet it never fell; evident of both his lack of knowledge on Italian take-out and his sense for perfection. “Still ordering stuff like this, I see.”

“It helps me blend in,” Adam defended, losing the drawl he’d picked up from Virginia by the second. “Keeping up the look,” he said to both accounts.

“You can “keep up the look” without eating it,” Declan shrugged as Adam took the box from him. “I’m not here to just deliver this… gross matter, though. Not that anyone will deliver anything for much longer, actually.”

“I figured as much,” Adam agreed before trailing off. “... what do you mean, ‘for much longer’?”

“That’s what I’m here about,” said Declan in a way that was much too calm given the gravity of the conversation. “Something’s finally afoot. The enemy is planning something.. We have it on good account that…” He paused. “That Ronan is playing a hand in it.”

“I see,” Adam muttered, trying to keep the pizza box from slipping out of his own hands. “And you want me to find out what his hand is.”

“Without him noticing,” agreed the Archangel, giving Adam a deep nod to confirm. “It’s a wonder you’ve stayed unnoticed since the beginning, actually.”

“ _Nos miracula creamus_ ,” Adam recited, half-heartedly and desperately trying to hide it.

Declan’s lips curled into the closest to a smile they ever got. “ _Facito optimus pro nobis_.” And immediately, he was gone.

Heaving a sigh, Adam locked the door after he went in and left the pizza on the counter.

He’d lost his taste for it tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Latin in this scene:  
> Acta non verba - Actions, not words  
> Nos miracula creamus - We create miracles  
> Facito optimus pro nobis - To create what's best for us


	4. Act One, Scene Two

### ACT ONE, SCENE TWO

NEEVE MULLIN DIDN’T WANT THE WORLD TO END. At the very least, not without her finding her spot in the limelight first.

She was a Psychic. Not the sort that chooses the perfect Christmas gifts or that knows the exact restaurant her dates were taking her - though she did know those things too - but a bonafide professional at reading palms and cards and scrying into a pool so black that you’d swear it was void. She knew how to tune herself into the energy that entwined the earth and how to use that to her advantage, telling fortunes and becoming known for her accuracy.

Neeve had spent years putting together her reputation, her aesthetic, her entire life to take her to where she currently was. She was close to the summit. She wanted more. 

And so it was because of this that she found herself with a nun in her trunk and a fistfull of papers stuffed into the pockets of a long black robe.

She had seen the future that was to come, that the small religious hospital just off the main road was going to bring about. She’d scried time and time again, only to see the same vision: A baby replaced with a demon, raised in a destructive way that would cause him to end the world in eighteen years time. The visions always stopped after that, and thus Neeve brought it upon herself to make them start again.

_ Yes _ , Neeve thought to herself. _ I’ll just have to stop the world from ending _ .

An ambitious task for an ambitious woman.

She’d memorized the plan by heart, the one that the Mother Superior was currently droning yet again to the rest of the convent. The room was filled by the excitement over the Antichrist that only a room of Satanic Nuns could conjure.

The nuns’ plan was simple: Wait for this demon, the one called Ronan, to deliver the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast, Prince of this World, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness. Wait for Mrs. Kavinsky, a conman’s wife, to give birth in their hospital (Neeve wondered how they knew she’d come tonight. She wanted to meet their seer). Switch the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast, Prince of this World, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness and the Kavinsky’s baby. Easy as apple pie.

Listening in, Neeve went over her own plan in her head: Wait for this ‘Ronan’ to deliver the Antichrist (Neeve found it faster to call him this, when not talking to the other nuns). Wait for Mrs. Kavinsky to give birth. Wait for the switch. Find a moment where there was no one looking and switch them back. This would be about as easy as lemon meringue pie, as there were a lot of nuns to watch out for, but Neeve figured she could make it work. She’d made everything else in her life work thus far.

Jobs: Assigned. Stage: Set. All of the Satanic decor had been hidden away in favor of giving the family no reason for concern. Just a small out-of-place hospital in rural Virginia.

There were sirens sounding and tires screeching up the dirt road.

On with the show.

RICHARD AND ASTRID GANSEY didn’t sign up for this when they’d decided to have their second child.

Helen, their first child, had been easy. Astrid had given birth to her after a normal term at Bon Secours hospital in Richmond, just as the Ganseys had planned.

Their son, on the other hand, couldn’t seem to be able to wait, and so they’d opted to try the small religious hospital suggested by the cop that had pulled Richard over for speeding. He’d been appalled at the officer’s audacity, suggesting that his wife - his wife who was a U.S. Senator, at that - give birth in a hospital that they’d never even heard of. But as Astrid howled in pain, it became clear that time was of the essence, and so he’d veered off the highway and onto a series of roads that led to St. Beryl’s Convent Hospital.

Right now, Richard was waiting outside the hospital. They hadn’t let him back with Astrid for some God-forsaken reason, and there was another man sitting in the waiting room that gave him the absolute chills. He was perfectly fine waiting out in the warm night air until they agreed to let him back to room three to see his wife and newborn son.

An engine and a stereo roared up the road, and he jumped back as a black BMW skidded into a parking spot. Out of the vehicle came a man dressed in all black without a scratch on him, and he retrieved a comically large picnic basket from the passenger side.

“Hey, you,” he called, and it took Richard a moment to realize that this was directed at him. “Has it started yet?”

“I’m sorry,” he managed to force out, trying to make sense of the odd man. “Has what started?”

“It,” the odd man spat back.

_ Oh _ .  _ The birth. He’s a doctor. Or some kind of resident _ , Richard thought to himself, as the leather jacket and lack of scrubs didn’t scream “tenured doctor” to him. “They’re in room three. Told me to stay out here.”

“Right, got it,” the man muttered, making his way into the hospital.

The BMW’s lights went out just as Richard was about to bring it up. Blinking in surprise, he murmured, “Maybe he is tenured after all…” 

Richard figured it’d be a miracle if the man could afford such an intelligent car otherwise.

MRS. KAVINSKY was giving birth to her son in room four, contrary to Ronan’s belief in every aspect of the situation. After all, he had been given the wrong room and only the vaguest of instructions from Satan. Hand him off to the Nun in the hallway. She’ll take it from there, and Mrs. Kavinsky’s child will be switched. And so, with all that Ronan knew, he had fulfilled his job by handing the basket to the insurgent that he believed to be said Nun.

“He looks so… normal,” Neeve cooed, holding the lid of the basket open. “Hard to believe that he’s the antichrist. Really blends in, huh?”

“That’s the point,” Ronan huffed. “He’s going to room three, okay?”

“Room three?” she asked, and it was then that Neeve saw her shot. “Of course. I’ll just find something other than this basket for him. Less suspicious.”

“Whatever.” The demon turned to walk back out the door, and Neeve had a hard time believing that he was a demon, too. “Just get it done.”

Of course, Neeve didn’t do exactly what she said she’d do. She just didn’t do what she’d planned to do, either. Instead of waiting to switch the babies back, she found her way to room four, taking the baby away from his sleeping mother. She was sure she could play it off as a simple weight check if worse came to worst. She took the antichrist with her, and together they all went to the empty room one. The antichrist was put in a bassinet of his own, and she took Mrs. Kavinsky’s baby back to her. A switch that looked like it could have happened when, in fact, it didn’t. Neeve was beginning to think maybe a meringue pie wasn’t as hard to make as people said it was.

While Neeve went to make the fake switch, Mrs. Gansey’s baby was also taken to room One, which was now one baby less-empty. Sister Laurence moved aside the baby she believed to be the Kavinsky’s original baby so she could weigh Mrs. Gansey’s baby, then parked said baby in his bassinet now next to the scale. “I’ll go get someone to stay with you, my dears,” she told them, and she left the room to find a cover for her so she could take her break. In she sent Neeve, returning from her fake baby-switch and feeling proud for it.

Neeve weighed the baby that she believed to be Mrs. Gansey’s and sent for Sister Mary to watch the baby she believed to be the Antichrist while she gave Mrs. Gansey her child back. Off went the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast, Prince of this World, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness to the loving arms of Mr and Mrs. Gansey, who promptly named him after who they believed was his father and letting Neeve escape unnoticed into the night.

The Antichrist had been on Earth for an hour and had passed hands thrice. And unbeknownst to anyone, the clock began to tick.


	5. Act One, Scene Three

### ACT ONE, SCENE THREE

PARRISH AUTOBODY AND REPAIR closes at 5PM on most nights, though calling it open most days may have been an overstatement. It was open from 9 to 5 by hours sign only, but more often than not Adam was either working on one of his specialized projects or reading one of the countless books that lined the shelves of the back office or the one-story just down the driveway.

Adam had intended to spend his evening doing the former, though the visit from Declan had put other thoughts into his head that refused to let his focus stay on his books. And that was before the phone rang. 

He fumbled for the cell phone that all his calls went through, business or not, picking up before he could see who it was. “Parrish Autobody and Repair,” he drawled, “We’re closed right now, but you can bring whatever it is by tomorrow morning.”

“Cut it out, Adam. You know it’s me.”

Immediately, Adam stood a bit straighter. “I should’ve guessed.”

“We need to talk. In person.”

Swallowing hard, he replied, “I think you’re right about that, Lynch. We do. It’s about  _ that _ , isn’t it?”

The lack of answer confirmed Adam’s suspicions. “Nino’s. Noon tomorrow. Be there.”

NINO’S PIZZA HAD BEEN SERVING AS ADAM AND RONAN’S MEETING PLACE since it opened in the 70s. It had become something of a neighborhood institution, and everyone from the neighborhood families to the students from local Aglionby Academy came there for the pizza, the iced tea, but mostly for the tradition. 

There was always an empty booth waiting for the supernatural duo when they wanted to meet, and an empty booth on either side of them waiting for no one, which helped to keep their conversations between just the two of them.

Adam found himself sitting in a booth of the restaurant a quarter hour early. Everything was in place by the time Ronan joined him: Music loud enough to cover their conversation, order already in the oven, an oversized glass of iced tea sweating in the heat, and a bottle of Guinness set in front of Ronan’s seat to join it.

“I’ll take it that you had a hand in starting it,” Adam didn’t so much ask as he did state. He wasn’t one to beat around the bush without good reason.

“They just put him in my hands. Literally; I handed him over, Parrish. Fuck.” Ronan ran a hand through - or rather, over - his hair, glaring at the table as though it was the thing that gave him the Antichrist to begin with. “He’s gone to a mobster’s family. There’s enough evil influences and that kinda crap in that household to make  _ him _ evil. It’s going to happen once he’s all grown. That’s what… eighteen for them?”

“And then it’ll be here…” Adam breathed. “Armageddon.”

The word felt far more weighty said aloud. It wasn’t the sort of word one would normally throw around over pizza and drinks. Ronan shifted back in his seat, clearly just as uncomfortable with the word as Adam was

“Well… At least after that it won’t be bad, I guess. After all, we’re going to win.” Ronan cocked an eyebrow as Adam said this.

“Oh Satan,” he huffed. “That’s really all you fucking have to say on this?”

“Silver linings,” Adam tried.

“Silver linings, my ass.” Ronan kicked his feet up on the table. “You have no proof that you’re going to win.”

“Shut up; you know we will.”

“And what happens when you do? Just celestial harmony bullshit from then on out?” Adam winced, and so he continued. “You’ll lose everything if your side wins. What about those books you always page through? Your academic ones? We have Pythagoras down there. Not to mention Lovecraft and Hugo. And don’t get me started on everything else; no more dives like this one. No thin-crust pizzas…” he paused. “And no more shitbox repair shops.”

“Just stop talking, Lynch. I don’t want to hear about it.” Adam thanked the waitress as she set their regular order in front of them (Sausage and pepperoni; half with jalapenos and half with tomatoes. Thin crust.) and tried to pretend that food would put an end to the conversation. He’d hoped that it would, at least. Barely counted as a miracle to speed up an order that’d be done in two minutes, anyway. Ronan handed him a slice, and it was already cool.

“Listen, Parrish. We only have eighteen years until no more everything. We’re working together to stop it; we have to.”

Adam pointed his pizza slice accusatorily at Ronan. “Absolutely not.”

“It’s the literal end of the fucking world, for Satan’s sake,” came the growled reply. “Not some little temptation I’m asking you to cover at the next DC Car Show. You can’t fucking say ‘no’.”

“I already have.”

Deep down, that was not what Adam had wanted to say, but it was what he was supposed to. Things often got awkward when he had to say what was required of him, such as they did now. Silence reigned as the two of them finished off the pizza, and Adam prayed that Ronan would take his words at face value and not pry.

Ronan finally caved into breaking the tension. “I’ll get it,” he said when the waitress brought the check. “C’mon, Parrish. Let’s blow this joint and get trashed. One of the last chances to ever do that, apparently.”

BOTH COUPLES LEFT THE HOSPITAL that evening, one shortly after another. The nun was returned to her post, and Neeve Mullin had driven away miraculously unnoticed. After all, that was what she excelled at. Upon arriving back to her home, she’d discover that her foresight on not only the issue she’d hoped to prevent, but everything relating to it had left her vision. A job well done, she assumed, and she’d celebrated with some liquor saved at the back of her cabinet.

The job was, of course, not well done by Neeve’s standards, though it was done, and so the parents that were supposed to raise the Antichrist took their son home to a well made but exceedingly unloved home. Anatoly left the day after, with Nadja and their baby Joseph behind.

The real Antichrist was home by the time night fell. He had been dubbed Richard after his supposed father and was lovingly placed into his cradle in his new home.

ADAM AND RONAN HAD ALSO RETIRED HOME. To Ronan’s, to be exact. 

Demons were said to be creatures incapable of love, and yet Ronan had made his home a place somehow full of it. He lived on a farm in rural Virginia; a farm that couldn’t be found by mere mortal means. It was there that he raised cows and other livestock - he figured that he should, if he lived on a farm. Keeping up appearances. If a human were to somehow wander into the property dubbed the Barnes and stayed there for a week or so, watching, they’d find themselves confounded by the fact that while the cows were given pats and the occasional treat, they weren’t really cared for. Ronan just thought that cows should be self-sufficient, and so therefore they were.

There’d been many times where he’d invited Adam over to see the cows and talk about the Arrangement, wandering around the fields and doing stupid bets to decide who’d cover what Temptations and Miracles. They were lovely, lazy days where neither side mattered; only one to the other and the company they provided.

Tonight, however, was more like another sort of time they’d come to enjoy in one another's company; one with equal companionship but less gentle walks and intelligent conversation.

Alcohol had been something that was around almost as long as either of them remembered - from sometime between the Beginning and the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. It was also something they’d been enjoying for just as long, and so that night they fell back into the old habit of drinking themselves near out of their minds and the new habit of doing it out on the farmhouse’s porch.

“No more of this after it ends,” Ronan slurred, waving his empty bottle vaguely towards the sky. “No more getting absolutely trashed at the bar, or the Barnes… No more Barnes. No more nothing.”

“There’ll be other stuff,” tried Adam. “It’ll all be awfully nice afterwards… I mean shoot, we’ll win, so it’ll all be nice. Well, I guess not for y’all. Sorry.”

“Yeah, nice,” Ronan huffed. “Remind me what nice stuff you guys will have. Just celestial-fucking-harmonies and harps and no books and no - for Hell’s sake, Parrish, stop counting. I’m being fucking sarcastic.”

“Thank… someone you are.” He tossed his empty bottle aside in favor of a new one. It clinked against the walkway’s gravel. “It’s all nice, in theory. Better than if your l… uh… your side wins. Less damning.” Adam couldn’t help snickering at his own pun.

“Everything’s fucking damned no matter what!” An empty beer bottle crashed against the driveway to accentuate Ronan’s point. It drunkenly floated to the trash bin with a wave of Adam’s hand. “What about the fucking cows, Adam? What about the fucking… the fucking uh… The big-sea-cows? Even the G… Someone-damned Humans; No one gets a say and their shit’s still fucked.” 

The unsaid  _ even us _ weighed down on them heavier than the muggy Virginia air.

Ronan ran a hand over his buzzed hair, opting to bury his face in his hands after. It was a vulnerable side of him that Adam almost felt privileged to see, but he hated seeing his compatriot in such a state nonetheless. He reached out to put a hand on his shoulder, but recoiled and turned his gaze to the night sky instead.

“An eternity of Damnation. No matter what side we’re on, we’re all loose.” After a long silence, Adam finally decided, “Ronan, I’m too shit-faced for this. I’m going to s… stop being drunk.” He snapped his fingers, echoed by Ronan, and there they sat with their veins clear of alcohol and the drained bottles full of it again.

“Better?” Ronan asked, leaning against the steps.

“Physically, yeah,” agreed Adam. “Mentally? I hate all of this, Lynch. Waiting for the world to end, following orders to make it happen… It fucking sucks.”

The Demon sat upright all of a sudden, and Adam jumped in his seat when he did. “Say that again, Parrish.”

“What? ‘It all fucking sucks’?”

“No, dumbass - ‘following orders’. What are you supposed to be doing here?”

The Angel caught on quickly. “I’m here to stop you. I was ordered to stop you. So if you start the apocalypse and I stop you ...”

“Can’t get mad at you for that, can they? Listen, they want you to thwart me, and I’m supposed to make him evil. You give him good influence…”

“Evil would be thwarted, and an end to the apocalypse would be a coincidental byproduct in their eyes,” he agreed. “Can’t get called out for that.”

The tension that had surrounded them grew palpable yet again until they finally shook on the deal, and a silent sigh of relief went through them both.

“Guess that makes me a Godfather,” Adam joked.

“One of us, at least,” Ronan agreed.


	6. Act One, Scene Four

### ACT ONE, SCENE FOUR

THE DAY AFTER HER HUSBAND LEFT, Nadja Kavinsky went on job listing sites in hopes of finding people to help look after her son. Things had always been comfortable because of Anatoly’s work, but it was also what made things rough. It’d be better if she could distance her son from that life and her habits, so a nanny and a housekeeper were a must. Only one stood out for either job, and she’d decided to hire both: Niall Byrne and Cody Rowan. Both had rave reviews on the site, and so she had hired them with only a short interview.

NIALL BYRNE WAS GOOD AT HIS JOB FROM THE START, but proved to be even better at it as the child grew older, at least as far as Nadja and young Joseph were concerned. He was tough enough to keep Joseph from hurting himself, but fun to play with. He got Joseph into plenty of his own trouble. Reprimands were given when others caught him, but when it was only Joseph and his caretaker, the cloud of inconveniencing trouble never seemed to leave him.

“Remember, kid,” Niall would tell him. “You may not be now, but you’re going to be the boss of everything in your life someday. You make the rules, and you get to break whatever rules you can.”

“Mister Rowan says that I have to follow rules set by adults, because that’s what makes everything work nicely,” Joseph said back, putting down the can of silly string entrusted to him.

“Don’t listen to that goody-two-shoes.” said Niall, handing the can back to him. He grinned as Joseph sprayed the stuff all over Nadja’s couch. “You’re gonna be an adult some day, might as well make your own world starting now. Don’t listen to him; listen to me.”

Cody Rowan, on the other hand, was amazing at his job from day one. There wasn’t the learning curve of taking-care-of-a-being-that-couldn’t-walk-or-talk getting in his way. He was good at making use of what was already around the house, keeping it spic-and-span with minimal effort. The house plants thrived under his care, and soon the outside of the house was made to look somewhat like a home by an ever-thriving garden. Nadja hadn’t hired him to take care of the garden, but he seemed so at peace with it that she’d decided that there were worse things in life than a house surrounded by marigolds for her son to play in while she did other things.

“Why do you take such good care of them?” Joseph would ask when Niall wasn’t within earshot.

“Because,” Cody would reason, patting the soil in place around his latest addition, “All living things deserve to be treated with respect and love. That’s what makes the flowers grow; the heavens love them, I reckon, so they send down sun and water for them. That’s how all things should be treated, Joseph. Respect and love.”

“Mister Niall says that living things are just stepping stones that should be trampled to get what I want.”

“I think Mister Niall was just joking,” Cody said. “Don’t listen to things like that. Listen to me.”

As far as either party was concerned, the Arrangement worked perfectly. Though Joseph wasn’t the pinnacle of good, he wasn’t becoming the heir of Darkness that either side made him out to be. Ronan and Adam spent a lot of time discussing their handiwork during private meetings at Nino’s, the back of the garage, and the Barnes. Notes and glances were exchanged over countless pizzas, and neither of them could help but smile and hope, though neither dared to admit to the latter and Ronan refused to admit to the former as well.

YEARS WENT BY OF CODY AND NIALL’S SECRET MEETINGS, Anatoly’s comings and goings, and development of Nadja’s habits, and Joseph was well on the path towards neither side as it seemed. He liked race cars, and had no shortage of them as gifts from his father when he bothered to come home, but he also had a pet goldfish that his father couldn’t convince him to get rid of.

“I think I can say,” Adam would say in his reports to the other Angels, “that the Antichrist isn’t headed down a dark path now. Everything should be safe,”

There was a respectful applause and some smiles from the others. But other than Matthew, who had only recently joined the ranks, it felt more like the praise of bored businessmen. Uninterested, but polite.

“That certainly is something…” Declan would say back, “But I think it’s best for you to… ah… not get your hopes too high.”

“I don’t think I get what you mean.” Adam swallowed, trying to keep the drawl out of his voice. “It seems to be working, and we can just avoid the war if it works, Declan.”

“ _ Hoc est bellum _ ,” came the reply.  _ This is war _ . “We want to win. Not avoid it. Not that your efforts aren’t valliant, Adam... They’re just unneeded.”

With a clap on his shoulder from Matthew, Adam watched as the Archangels left. “We’ll see how unneeded they are,” Adam muttered as he made his way back to Earth.

AFTER FIVE YEARS OF THE ARRANGEMENT, Cody and Niall both took their leave as Joseph entered school, and each teacher was more odd than the last. Most notable in elementary school were Mr. Billings, who started first grade right off the bat with some of the more dark Grimms tales, and Mr. Tyson, who had the habit of getting overly invested in teaching about Abraham Lincoln and Florence Nightingale during the 4th Grade Civil War unit.

During this time, their proximity to Joseph decreased due to the restrictions (restrictive to them, at least) of the US Education System, but Ronan kept reporting the Hellish influences he had imposed, and Adam the thwarting of Ronan’s influences. It seemed as though Joseph would be normal, as they’d planned - He gained interest in sports and lost his interest in goldfish, but kept his interest in cars. If anything, it became more of a part of his life. He’d thought about going into auto engineering, much to Adam’s delight.

In what was but a blink to most demons and angels, the Antichrist was entering High School. After a particularly long bout of wandering around the Barnes one late August evening, they agreed that things while watching over Joseph at Aglionby Academy would be a cakewalk. The hard work was done, and all that should have been left to do was wait and keep watch. They chose Latin and History as their cover classes, as Aglionby students had to take both for all four years. Into the world of private schooling entered Dallan Ryan and Garrett Abbey.

It should have all been perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Latin in this scene  
> Hoc est bellum - This is war
> 
> To kind of clarify Adam and Ronan's covers, as there were multiple:  
> Ronan - Niall Byrne, Mr. Billings, Dallan Ryan  
> Adam - Cody Rowan, Mr. Tyson, Garret Abbey
> 
> I picked Niall Byrne as a reference to Niall Lynch, and Garret Abbey as a riff on Adam's name - Abbey and Parrish are both churchy. Cody Rowan was a name picked by stadamparrish :)


	7. Act One, Scene Five

### ACT ONE, SCENE FIVE

AS WITH EVERYTHING IN LIFE, there are things that only the completely omniscient can foresee, leaving both Ronan and Adam in the lurch. 

School calendars and summers came and went, each one turning Joseph for the worst. The first day of their freshman year, Mr. Ryan found himself teaching the framework of Latin over rumors that Anatoly Kavinsky had come back to town. Their fears were confirmed when Adam, after a long day of teaching US History, found the man himself waiting at the Autobody shop, his brand new spoiler already ruined by the Henrietta streets. It happened in the same manner as a car’s volume: one degree at a time until the bass is thudding and the noise is too much to bear. 

Freshman year ended with the creation of the Dream Pack, Joseph’s crew that could be found in the alleys behind Aglionby’s dorms and at the white-streaked picnic table by the abandoned preschool. Sophomore year began with class skippings and stolen-car street races that never made the papers. It ended with a white Mitsubishi skidding into the parking lot. After Mr. Ryan and Mr. Abbey left school each day, Ronan lost count of the number of times the EVO roared past him, and Adam couldn’t remember a time longer than two weeks where Joseph didn’t take the Mitsubishi to Parrish’s or Boyd’s or both.

Time marched on, and with it came piles of tickets, arrests, and bribes that landed just outside of Adam’s influence and too far within the lines of what Ronan’s influence was meant to do. The angel could only watch in horror as Joseph came into school higher than the heavens. The demon was forced to feign pride as Joseph hotwired cars and convinced his father to buy off the Virginia police force. And both sat with hands tied as they pictured the armies of Heaven and Hell, ready to march at the Antichrist’s command.

“WE FUCKED UP.” Ronan’s half-full beer can collided with the car lift.

Adam sighed as he miracled the split beer away. “We didn’t do it on purpose. We just… We didn’t do enough.” The pieces, as far as he knew, were in place. No saving graces, no averting the Divine Plan. “It’ll be happening soon, won’t it? Two weeks.”

“Yeah. And that’s the problem,” Ronan hissed. “Two weeks until the end of the fucking world, and it…” He looked to the ground, then back to Adam. “It just feels wrong. And there’s no way to know if shit’s sideways until the fucking bird shows up.”

Adam cocked an eyebrow, looking away from the Porsche. “Hold on just a second, Lynch. What bird?”

“They’re… fuck… They’re sending a bird. He’s supposed to have a creature of ill omen at his side. ‘Protection’ and ‘serving his beck and call’ and all that. They… decided on a bird so it’s less obvious.”

“Less obvious, right,” snorted Adam. “Just a giant bird flapping around a delinquent highschooler and probably killing people.”

“Like anyone will notice.” The Demon left his seat, leaning against the lift as Adam went back to the undercarriage work. “Joseph just fucking makes it so they don’t. The kid has built-in make-humans-notice-nothing tom-fuckery, not to mention Demonic power. The works.” He paused, and so did Adam. 

He watched as Ronan stood in thought, just as he had many times before. The average onlooker saw him as aloof whereas Adam knew that kicks at the ground and glares at the world around him became more and more frequent as he thought. The angel often cast glances at his associate, as we all do, but he enjoyed the moments where he could really look at him.

“He’s… supposed to name it,” Ronan finally recalled. “Gouger. Throat ripper. Chainsaw.” The angel snorted at that last joke. “Basically, he makes the call on its nature. And if he does… Game over, Parrish.” He mimicked an explosion, his best sound effect accompanying it.

“Then we can’t let that happen,” Adam decided. “We have to send the bird away.”

JOSEPH KAVINSKY’S BIRTHDAY PARTY was not something that even Ronan thought he could prepare himself for.

They knew that the bird’s arrival wouldn’t happen at the broken birthday dinner Nadja had desperately tried to smooth out with Anatoly - A combination of the bird’s arrival time and intuition told them that. This information was confirmed by rumors flying around about Kavinsky’s Birthday Bash at the abandoned fairground. 

It had been clear from the beginning that it would be the scene for temptations bigger than any demon could pull off - there were probably substances that not even demons dared to try there. 

Adam glanced at Ronan with a look between disdain and impressment, somehow still out of place in his disguise as a teenage partygoer. In spite of borrowing Ronan’s most torn and ruined Rancid tee shirt, he looked too perfect and interesting for a substance party. 

It wasn’t noticeable enough for others to stare, but more than enough for Ronan to.

He had to tear his eyes away.

Neither of them could afford any distractions, and anyone could tell that there were plenty of them tonight. EDM pulsed so hard that the ground itself shook, and the strobe and neon lights were blinding. People were everywhere, from on top of the countless cars parked in the field to on top of each other. The air smelled like gasoline and pot and, where Ronan was, a cloud of expensive but undeniably horrible cologne.

Joseph howled with delight as he snorted a line from the hood of his Mitsubishi, the one that Ronan and Adam had conveniently been able to stand across from, half-full bottles of vodka in hand that neither of them were able to get drunk off of. It was miracle of Adam’s that was less actual miracle and more switching the contents with water, much to Ronan’s chagrin. He understood, though, why there was such a lack of miracles - too many and they’d both be caught. Ronan didn’t want to see Adam feel the wrath of Declan, nor did he want to feel Whelk’s wrath himself.

“Just one more minute, right?” Adam drawled into Ronan’s ear. “You said it’d arrive at around midnight.”

He leaned in to keep their conversation private and their guise up. “Should be. Then either he tells it to fuck off or we do, and everything’s right as chemical rain. We’ll get to stay on Earth a bit longer.” 

_ And I’ll get to spend that time with you. _

He let the unsaid words stay that way as he turned his eyes to the night, eyes scanning the horizon for any oversized murder-birds among the bottle rockets and roman candles. 

Countless illegal fireworks lit up the sky as midnight hit, and they kept climbing the sky as the time ticked on. Two minutes, then five, then ten. 

The realization hit both the Angel and Demon as they retreated back to the BMW, as they pulled away and sped down the Virginia highways. Neither of them dared to say what both knew the other was thinking.

No bird. Wrong boy. Wrong place. 

The beginning of the end times.


	8. Act One, Scene Six

### ACT ONE, SCENE SIX

IN AN EX-ABANDONED STORAGE WAREHOUSE IN HENRIETTA, there was another birthday party happening, if one could call it that.

Richard Gansey III, or Gansey as he liked to be called, had spent the day with his parents and sister in DC before retiring back home to Monmouth Manufacturing. Birthdays with the Gansey family were often eventful days full of expensive meals and expensive outings. Gansey saw any such event as a need for a mask, and so he was happy to receive Henry’s text asking if he could bring a six pack to Monmouth to toast to his friend’s eighteenth year alive.

“It feels so strange,” Gansey said to him as they cracked the cans open. “I’m an adult now, I guess.”

“That you are, G-Man.” Henry tipped his can towards Gansey before taking a long swig of the IPA inside. His perfectly-coiffed hair had given up it’s shape to the humidity, and it fell in his face a bit as he laughed. The shine in his eyes was still as jovial as ever. “The big one-eight. Now you can do civic duties and go do jury duty and all that fun stuff.”

“I don’t really want to,” he admitted. “I’d rather just stay here. It feels right.” He stared out the window and over the Henrietta rooftops, over Aglionby Academy and the Town Hall and the rolling Virginia hills that surrounded him. It felt still and quiet in the muggy heat.

It made Gansey feel quiet too.

“I don’t know what I was waiting for. I kept… keep hoping for something more. An explanation, I guess.”

“Ever the inquisitor. Enlighten me, Dick.”

Henry already had been enlightened as to Gansey’s thoughts countless times since they met in Sophomore year. They had a lot in common: the son of a senator meets the son of an entrepreneur, and their lives had just meshed together as they searched for their place. It had been an easy friendship, and Gansey was grateful for it: He felt the need to wear a mask around others so often. Anyone who gave him the chance to live life without it became a fast friend.

Henry was like him in several ways. A fellow mask-wearer who felt there was more to the world than what he saw, much like how there was more to him than the words that he said. It was a constant and mutual deciphering and understanding of one another that kept the friendship the way it was.

And yet in spite of his knowing that Henry knew, he felt the need to lay it all out again for both their sakes. After all, it never made sense except in the fact that he knew it should, like there was one final piece that connected it all. His words wove images of every last thing that had punched a hole in the way that everyone else knew the world - Surviving fatal hornet stings, seeing ghosts in his dreams. Not just any ghosts, but the ones who had saved him from the hornets. Three ghosts had granted him his life on that night ten years ago, leaving him with nothing more than a command and a name:  _ You will live because of the prophecies of Glendower. _

They were things that shouldn’t have been true nor real. Gansey didn’t know better so much as he could feel it.

Henry listened patiently as he always did, setting the can at his side as he did.

If he’d bothered to look a bit more to his side and out the window, he’d have seen that there was something else listening with him.

THE BIRD OF ILL OMEN WAS ESSENTIAL. It represented the coming of The Antichrist into his power, not that he didn’t have a considerable amount of it already. It was just as much a symbolic gesture as it was that final push.

Currently, that bird was perched in the tree outside its master’s window. Waiting to be noticed, waiting for a name. It seemed to be taking a while, but at least it was interesting to listen to him. She could already tell that his power had been getting stronger, and she couldn’t help being proud of him. That was her master; the powerful man that would bring the Apocalypse with her at his side.

Her hearing pricked up when she heard him finally ask, “Mon dieu, what’s that?”

The other human, the one with hair that reminded her of a sturdy nest, looked over too. “Looks like some kind of bird. It’s fucking huge,” he noted.

“Some birds can be big, Henry. Have you seen an eagle?”

“Have you?”

“Yes. It doesn’t look like an eagle though… It looks like…”

She waited for him to finally say his thoughts, as she felt the power in his words. Whether he knew it or not, this was the Moment in which she would become what he wanted her to be; what she was always meant to be and what she would be forever more.

“It looks like… a raven. A big raven.”

And so she was, flapping in through the conveniently opened window.

“Jesus Christ,” the human named Henry swore, stumbling to his feet and away from her.

“Krek,” she said back, then hopped up on to her Master’s arm.

“Well, she seems friendly enough,” he said, looking her over.

“ _ She _ ?”

“I think so,” Gansey replied as she let out a laugh. “Jesus,” he said. “I should call her Chainsaw; she sounds just like one.”

Chainsaw contemplated what it would have been like if Gansey had decided that’s what she was instead of a raven, but settled on his arm instead.

She wasn’t sure how being a raven would help bring about the End Times, but she was content with staying as a bird and staying at Gansey’s side.

* * *

END OF ACT ONE


	9. Act Two, Scene One

### ACT TWO, SCENE ONE

BLUE SARGENT COULD NOT SEE THE FUTURE. She was sometimes content with knowing that she’d be the one to help bring it about, but it didn’t stop her from wishing that she could.

It wasn’t that she didn’t know what was coming: She had been there for every one of the important readings done at 300 Fox Way, along with the more important readings done for some of the clientele. 

Whether it was Maura with her cards, Calla with the Book, or Persephone asking the spirits around them, the answer was always the same, and with Blue amplifying the psychic signals, it was always crystal clear:

The End was nigh. Blue could help stop it with a kiss to her True Love, but the kiss would prove fatal and they would die.

It came in every reading, every feeling and written prophecy in the Book, every ghost that ever whispered.

It was a weighty destiny that had kept Blue from even considering kissing anyone for years.

It seemed, though, that those years would be coming to an end. If her mother’s instincts weren’t enough to convince her, the Book did. 

It wasn’t so much a book as it was a series of papers carefully tucked into the biggest binder she had ever seen. The text was a family heirloom, written in old Welsh and translated into increasingly-newer versions of English until it became what Blue held in her hands.  _ The Prophecies of Gwenllian Glendower, daughter of the Raven King _ read the bold font on the binder.  _ Interpreted by the Witches of 300 Fox Way _ read the careful script below it.

_ Prophecy 378 _

_ He shall walk in to the tavern serving food of Rome _

_ After speaking to Blue, he misplaces his tome _

_ The clocks will have started, but when Page and True Love meet _

_ The Heart of the Apocalypse begins to beat _

_ Prophecy 379 _

_ When one rides in fire, and two as one in the sky _

_ The End of Days is hours ‘til nigh _

_ After the Page’s kiss kills her Lover, True _

_ So too she shall be there, the Lady Blue _

Blue slammed the binder shut, reciting the most recent page as she tied on her work apron. 

If any of Gwenllian’s prophecies rang true, that meant today would be the start of it; the moment that told her not just the fate of the world, but equally important, the fate of herself. She just hoped that whether it came true or not, she’d be able to really live after all of it.

Of course, she knew better. After all, she would not have memorized them if they were fallacy.

“Mom!” she roared as she ran down the stairs and out the door. “I’m leaving for work!”

“Be safe,” Maura called from the kitchenette. It wasn’t lost on Blue that she forewent their usual joke:  _ Don’t kiss anyone _ . 

And somewhere, laying cold in her crypt, Gwenllian Glendower smiles.

AS FAR AS GANSEY WAS CONCERNED, life went on as usual; he had no awareness of the prophecies that hinted at his name. There was school to go to, mysteries to unravel, and pizza to eat. The Pig sputtered as Gansey pulled the Camaro into the Nino’s parking lot, and Henry gave the dashboard a meaningful pat before jumping out the door, promising to put in their order. Gansey followed suit, climbing out of the Pig’s cabin with considerably more grace and walking around the hood to shut Henry’s door. He kept waiting for the day that he’d remember.

Contrary to what he’d promised, Henry had stopped at a table just outside Nino’s door, and so Gansey found himself stopping with him. There were usually fundraisers set up outside of Nino’s; it was an institution, and so the foot traffic couldn’t be beat there. Gansey had lost count of how many boxes of samoas he’d bought in the Nino’s parking lot, though that could have been the fault of the girl scouts and their samoas themselves rather than the location they set up in.

Today, a petition lay out on the table:  _ Keep Searching for Noah Czerny _ . “Will you sign?” the girl behind the table asked. “They found new evidence; we want them to open the case back up so we can find him. Give him proper rites. He deserves to at least have that.”

The story of Noah Czerny was one that hit Aglionby close to home. A student from the school who had gone missing in 1994. He was assumed dead when the culprit stepped up, and yet his body remained unfound. It hurt Gansey to think of someone like him - at the pinnacle of life - killed, left for dead, and further left unfound. He picked up the pen immediately. 

“It’s a shame he had to die,” he said as he handed the pen to Henry. “He shouldn’t be dead.”


	10. Act Two, Scene Two

### ACT TWO, SCENE TWO

RONAN HAD A SECRET WEAPON. When he had been asked if he wanted an assistant to help in the malarkey he was creating upon Earth, he turned hell down immediately. He didn’t need other Demons looking into his work. But deep down, so deep that he didn’t know this secret, he had hoped so hard for a confidant who would keep the Arrangement secret that one day, a small demon-esque being had appeared at the Barns - a blonde-haired child with goat legs and a scrappy attitude. 

It had taken him a while to get used to having the creature - Opal, she was called - around, but she’d proven helpful in that he didn’t have to carry the weight of having fallen all alone, whether he wanted to admit to that or not. Besides, she proved useful sometimes. The trash from his benders happened to be one of her favorite snacks, and every so often she had a good idea.

Today was one of these “every so often”, and in a whirlwind of blunt outgoing messages and eloquent replies, Ronan had loaded her into the back seat of the BMW to go pick up the Angel. “Stop that,” Ronan huffed as she kicked against Ronan’s seat in protest. “You know why you can’t sit up here. Besides, Parrish gets the passenger seat.”

The atmosphere of the car when Adam got in changed in a way that any other demon or angel would find suspicious, but Opal was happy to pull at Adam’s sleeve in greeting as they skidded away from the Autobody shop. He smiled to her and to Ronan before asking in a more serious tone, “What’s the deal, Lynch?”

“Short Stuff’s idea,” Ronan gruffed. “She said there must have been some mix up at the hospital.” 

Opal beamed in pride at her idea as Adam agreed, “That’s real smart. If we just find our way in and poke around records, something ought to be there.” He said ‘find our way in’ in a way that she knew no other angel would dare. She respected him for that. “They’ve gotta keep records or something.”

“Exactly. We can narrow it down from there; place is fucking tiny. Can’t have been that many moms giving birth.” Ronan didn’t smile, but his eyes may well have been. It was the opposite of how the other demons smiled. “In and out like a fucking cakewalk.”

Adam laughed, and Opal found herself joining too. In spite of the importance of the trip, it was too nice of an atmosphere to not.

SHIFTS AT NINO’S VARIED GREATLY IN QUALITY. The best, Blue thought, were on the spring weekdays where all the Raven Boys were at school and the few tourists were nonexistent. They were pleasant - just a few tables with only the regulars, maybe a to-go order here or there. There were no engines revving in the parking lot, no Raven Boys shouting orders, and there was actually time to breathe in between taking orders and carrying trays.

Her shift today was near opposite. A Sunday afternoon where tables were full of Aglionby boys desperate to put off homework for another hour.

If someone else asked her for a sweet tea and a face to match, she was pretty sure she’d lose it. If the tips weren’t so good, she was pretty sure she would have quit a long time ago.

And then, he tapped her on the shoulder.

Blue whipped around to face the assailant, eyeing him up and down. A man with hair that was just messed up enough to be perfect, a salmon pink polo and khaki shorts. She was pretty sure that if she looked down, he’d be wearing boat shoes to finish off the book. She sighed a bit on the inside. A Raven Boy.

“Can I help you?” 

“I sure hope so,” he replied in the tone she’d heard so many times before. “Can I ask you about your tattoo?”

Blue had had the tattoo since winter and had dreamt of getting it for as long as she could remember: a chalice running down her arm, the rim made of three intersecting lines. There was wine in the cup, and yet the cup never spilled, the liquid kept in at an angle that made it seem as though it was suspended by sheer will. It had been copied over, she had been told, directly from Gwenllian’s original book of prophecy. Blue felt it suited her, and so she’d had it made permanent.

She looked to it out of instinct before meeting his gaze. “It’s a cup,” she told him nonchalantly. She didn’t want to spend the time explaining it to someone that she figured wouldn’t get it or care enough to get it. Countless flirts had begun this way and they often ended badly, usually for the opposing party.

She blinked in surprise when he did the opposite, asking, “Yes, but do you know what it means?” he asked earnestly.

This was new.

“Of course I do,” she scoffed as soon as she regained her composure. “I don’t get anything done unless I know the meaning.”

“Then can you tell me?”

“I’m working,” she spat at him. “Can’t it wait?”

“Please,” he insisted. “I need to know.”

“And I need to work.” 

“I’ll make it worth your while.” He was buzzing with a need for knowledge that Blue recognized, but met with disdain when it came from him. “This is important; I mean it when I say that. How much do you make an hour? I can talk to your manager too.”

Blue could feel her face heating up. “I’m not a prostitute.”

His face heated up likewise. “No, no, I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Well even if you didn’t,” She spat, “I already told you I’m working.” She picked up her tray of drinks to punctuate her point. “Have a nice day,” she said to seal it.

Things went smoothly for the next hour or so, or as smoothly as a shift at Nino’s on a Sunday could be. Tables were served and orders were places and tips were earned. 

It was the Raven Boy that ruined it again.

Laying on the inside of the booth was a leather notebook, a set of lines embossed in the cover. The same lines of the mouth of the chalice. 

Ley lines.

Gwenllian’s prophecy.

“I’ll be right back!” she roared to the hostess as she ran past her, every possible swear word running through her head with her.

She caught him just as he was getting into his car, chatting to the other Raven Boy he came here with. “You left this.” She held it out to them, and as her instinct and disdain had said, the one from before took it from her.

“Thank you,” he said, and she’d have heard it was genuine if she wasn’t studying his face and trying to memorize it. “I’d be lost without this.”

“About what you said earlier,” she said to them both. “My shift ends at five,” she told him. “Give me until five, and then we’ll talk.”


	11. Act Two, Scene Three

### ACT TWO, SCENE THREE

PIPER WAS CREATED TO THRIVE OFF CHAOS. After all, aren’t most people, in some way? Everyone has their own parts of their own lives that they allow to live in disarray, be it a junk drawer or a corner of a desk or things of other forms. It keeps them human. 

The only real difference is that Piper is not.

Piper had lived through every war that she had ever been in - and she’d been in every last one. In the truest essence of the sentence, you couldn’t have a war without her there.

If you count ‘often’ as ‘every time’, she brought conflict with her. No one truly believed that she could, for how could such a bombshell of a woman possibly bring anything bad with her? But then again, no one seemed to think twice about the bombshell part.

She lavished her time in warzones before she created them. They were like gardens to her, lush and full of potential. And how beautifully she took care of those gardens. “They take no effort,” she’d once told her friends. “After all, the seeds are already there. They’re just waiting for me to come and let them grow.”

There was a rapping on the door of the conference room that she stood in, and she sulked when all the guns went from targeting one another to targeting the door, or whoever was behind it. She hated when sworn enemies united against another force. Then again, this was a step up when the parties around her were seconds from signing for peace before she’d walked into the room. With all the confidence of a victorious general, she sauntered to the doors, throwing them open as a hundred breaths hitched behind her.

“Delivery,” the man said, handing her a long box. “You need to sign for it.” In his hands, he now held a grey clipboard and pen. His steely eyes looked over the sea of guns and worried faces as she took it from him. The ink was red when she signed, three letters scrawled with impeccable penmanship and a flourish. 

The guns began firing at her as soon as she drew the sword from its packaging. The man in grey hit the floor in self protection, and shortly after the corpses of the tyranny and the rebels joined him, but in death.

“It’s finally time,” Piper smirked.

SEARCHING ST. AGNES WAS NOT A FUCKING CAKEWALK. It was painfully obvious from the minute that the BMW swerved onto the road that Ronan swore led to St. Agnes. If it weren’t for the level of what he could only barely call trust he had in the demon, Adam would call it a rouse, but the way that Ronan’s knuckles went white-hot as he gripped the steering wheel, he knew better than to say otherwise. The charred sign next to the rubble-filled lot proved otherwise.

“Fucking God… Satan… Fucking Someone be damned!” the demon hissed, head about to collide with the steering wheel. Opal gave a shout as she and Adam both grabbed his shoulders to keep him back. They stayed like that until Adam could feel Ronan’s muscles untense, and even after, his hands lingered longer than they should have.

“Let’s get out and take a poke around,” he said softly, and Ronan nodded. “There ought to be something.”

The rubble crunched under their feet as they surveyed the area, Opal waiting in the car to keep attention away. There was nothing there - nothing in the regular sense of the word, and nothing in Adam’s. Places tend to have feelings about it, and the utter lack of anything at the site of the former St. Beryl’s was uncanny.

Something, clearly, had gone wrong here.

A kick of Ronan’s foot sent dust around the air as Adam continued to look around. There were no traces that anything medical in nature had existed in the site - an inside job, he guessed, if all the equipment safely made it out. 

“Not a trace,” Ronan finally said.

And that was when they saw it. A caduceus insignia stamped into a paper, threatening to blow away in the hot Virginia breeze. “Richard,” the Demon read off of it as he picked it up.

Adam looked over his shoulder. “Is that all?” he asked.

Ronan shook his head mournfully. “That’s all there is.”


	12. Act Five, Scene Four

### ACT TWO, SCENE FOUR

AT SIX O’CLOCK, BLUE FOUND HERSELF DOING THE IMPOSSIBLE as she tromped up to the address that the Raven boys - Gansey and Henry, she reminded herself - had given her. It was an old warehouse, one that she’d passed so many times on her way to various jobs and that she’d used to hold her breath as she hurried past it. Her mind told her to hurry past it as usual, that it had to be a trap in some way. Her heart and the boys laughing around a make-shift fire pit convinced her otherwise. 

She’s gone home first, gathering books and roaring to her aunts that she’d be back later. She’d quietly tucked the binder into her bag, too. She didn’t want to need it, but she liked the security of having it close to her. If something went awry tonight, she hoped Gwenllian would help.

“Gentlemen,” she regarded as she approached, a certain air of sarcasm to her voice.

“You made it!” Exclaimed Gansey, jumping to his feet. His pink polo was still too bright given that night was falling, and his smile was even brighter. He pulled his glasses off and set his book aside to welcome her. His hands were warm when she shook them, comforting as the campfire she stood by. Or perhaps it was Gansey himself that was the campfire; warm and inviting, a danger and a savior, both easy to extinguish yet so alive, alive, alive.

She wished it wasn’t him that she’d have to kiss.

If Gansey was a campfire, then Henry was a forest fire. She’d given more of her attention to Gansey when she’d first seen them - a little hard not to, when he was asking her so many questions - but once you really saw him it was hard to look away. He was bright and eccentric like Gansey, but in a different direction. Clothes from near distant eras and hair with just enough intention to not be a mess at all. She wasn’t sure whether he was the raging inferno itself or the controlled burn to keep it at bay, or maybe he was both. “Dick 3.0 was worried you wouldn’t make it,” he said after some thought, corners of his lips turning up into a grin. “Told you she’d come.” He said that last bit to Gansey, who went pink at the jab.

“I wasn’t worried,” Gansey concurred, but the relief she saw in him said otherwise. “I’m glad that you did come though. I haven’t seen that anywhere else, not until now. C’mon, join us.” he grabbed a metal folding chair for her, folding it open. “I didn’t know anyone else here knew about Glendower.”

“Most of the real psychics do,” she explained, taking a seat and a marshmallow when Henry offered one to her. “My whole family is made up of real ones, so of course I know too.”

“And you’re one too?”

She took a long pause, holding back her bitterness. “I’m not,” she admitted. “I just make things clearer and help with the prophecies. Like...” she thought for a moment, thinking of an analogy they’d understand. She finally settled on, “Like a telescope. You can see stars without it. But you can see them better when you use it; see them in more detail.” Blue couldn’t help glancing to the sky as she spoke, and the boys did with her. The beginnings of stars were starting to prick the evening sky, and she stared at them wistfully. “But I can’t see them myself.”

A long pause followed. “I think I understand,” both boys managed to breathe out at the same time.

The rest of the evening went like this: Blue laughing at marshmallows shoved into Henry’s mouth and clinging to Gansey’s polo. The boys laughing at her in return when her own went up in flames and melted into the ashes below. It was connections made over a love of yogurt and speeding over to the (I literally just read the store name and i forgot) in the Pig to get some. It was Blue eating the actual yogurt part while Gansey and Henry fought over the fruit at the bottom.

It was Blue retelling the chaos of living in a house of psychics as Henry tied in the chaos of his own family. “What do you mean ‘kidnapped’?” Blue asked him until he recounted the thrilling tale into a happy end. It was him explaining about his mother - an entrepreneur who worked so hard to advance the world that the impractical got in the way. How other companies were so ready to take for their gain that they’d take a rival’s son. How it was stupid that had been the case at all.

It was Gansey weaving the stories of charmed Aglionby student life until Blue realized the longing that he felt in spite of the wealth around him. That he felt caged from himself, an explorer and researcher prodded behind a high-class mask for the sake of his family, even though he loved them. How he loved his mother and father and sister but sometimes that life was the mask info itself.

It was Blue realizing that they were all trapped against the ensnarements of their societies, and while she could hate Raven boys, she couldn’t hold it against her Raven Boys.

The evening wasted away into more honeyed conversations and stories and by the end of it, she felt that she knew them and they knew her; they looked at both at her and at each other with the same regard she gave them.

When Gansey gave her one last smile before she left, her own faltered.

She wished that she didn’t have to be the one to kill him.

THE RIDE BACK WAS SILENT UNTIL RONAN HIT SOMETHING. A lot of commotion came with it as Opal screamed, Ronan shut the engine off, and Adam lept from the passenger door to check on what - or in this case, who - the BMW had run into.

“What the shit, Lynch?” Adam hissed, helping the girl to her feet and out of the road. She groaned in pain as he laid her on the median, nearly unconscious. He was glad that, if she had to have been hit, he and Ronan were there to help, but still he glared at the Demon bitterly.“There was a stop sign right fucking there.”

“And I stopped,” Ronan huffed back. “Just stopped a bit too short. Couldn’t see her anyway; she stopped a bit short, too.” Adam glared daggers at him yet again for his joke, and so he went about fixing the car. It wasn’t a lot of damage done; just some scratches from whatever wild things the lady was wearing. Were those lamp tassels held by those safety pins? He waved his hand, and the scratches faded back into jet black.

“Hey, you feeling alright? You don’t have any broken bones; just a couple bruises,” he said to her, and with a miracle, it was so.

“I’d be better if y’all didn’t hit me,” she muttered, brushing a mess of hair and barrettes out of her face. “What the hell was that for?”

“Honest mistake. I don’t reckon he knows the area too well,” Adam lied. “We’re real sorry.” He said this to mean Ronan was sorry, though he knew Ronan wouldn’t say it aloud. “Where’re you headed? We’ll take you home.”

“We will?” he heard Ronan mutter under his breath, but the Demon didn’t object, and so Adam helped her into the back seat with Opal. The small Demon looked upon the girl with the same level of curiosity that she was looked upon with.

“Hi,” she said, wriggling back into her seat. She pulled her knees to her chest and folded her hands as if trying to hide what she was.

“Hi…” The girl replied back, pausing as she adjusted her seatbelt when she noticed. “You… Have hooves?”

“Picked her up from a costume party,” Ronan lied as he slid back into the driver’s seat.

A look of relief crossed their passenger’s face when he said that. “Some costume,” she agreed, and they sped with her off into the night.


	13. Act Two, Scene Five

### ACT TWO, SCENE FIVE

NOAH CZERNY WAS DEAD. At least, he had been until the voice said he shouldn’t be.

Mortality was a tricky business, and while he could only remember fuzzy images of what it had been like after he died, he knew that he had been. If the memory - or lack thereof - wasn’t enough to prove it, the concave in his left cheek was - bruised purple for what he assumed would be forever more. If the bruise wasn’t enough, the fact that he hadn’t been alive since 2013 was. There was no other good explanation. 

He wandered back to his home, back to Henrietta, heart hammering in his chest in a way that was both comforting and concerning. He remembered so little, mostly voices.

A voice saying that he’d live because of the Prophecies of Glendower.

A voice telling him that he shouldn’t be dead.

And then all at once, he wasn’t.

There wasn’t a specific place he could remember that he was walking to; he just kept walking to where his feet were taking him: forward.

The lights shone from what was a factory warehouse when he was studying at Aglionby. Though it seems abandoned, the windows glowed brightly against the dawn sky, and he found himself going to it like a moth to flame. He rapped on the door, and after a minute that lasted both hours and seconds, he heard feet tromping down a flight of stairs.

“Jesus,” breathed the man that opened the door. He was the pinnacle of scholarly youth if Noah had ever seen it, and he’d been surrounded by it for four years. Perfectly messed chestnut hair and gracefully askew glasses. “You look beat. Come in.”

HE FOUND IT UNDER HIS SEAT when Ronan dropped him off that evening. A series of papers carefully tucked into the biggest binder he had ever seen, and he’d seen several during his time on earth. There were words that caught his eye; words that kept his attention and that he felt he should know. The Prophecies of Gwenllian Glendower. They were important; Adam could tell, but he hadn’t any idea why.

Settling at his desk with a cup of sweet tea and a phone, he held it up to better read the address scrawled across the cover. As he did, a page fell out of the binder. It was in pristine shape, as though it had been tucked in with the intent of it falling onto an angel’s desk. His own name caught his attention. The binder itself made a heavy thud against the desk as he dropped everything to grab the sheet, reading as though his eternal life depended upon it.

_ Prophecy 287 _

_ Angel of Parrish, mine texts shall read _

_ For like Adams before him, curiosity shall reign _

_ Read them, angel, read them and see _

_ For these matter more than your machines and your tea _

He’d already forgotten about the tea by the time he was halfway through the stanza. 

Gingerly, he opened the binder and began to read.

* * *

END OF ACT TWO


	14. Intermission

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi lovelies! I'll be putting my latin at the end, as per usual, but I wanted to take a second to say that this intermission is very much historical fiction - As such, I do talk about an attempted Nazi saboteur mission on US soil. It's meant to mirror the WWII church scene in the Good Omens TV series, so it only goes in about as much detail as that did. But I felt it better to give a heads up here!
> 
> I hope that you all have enjoyed this piece so far! There's a lot more to come, and I hope that you continue to enjoy it!
> 
> -Yessie

### INTERMISSION

THINGS WERE NOT ALWAYS, of course, as they are now, but they had always been leading to this. Nothing happens without reason, even if that reason is millennia away. Fates had locked hands in waltzes long before the lives that went with them had existed. If you think about it, after all, are we not always dancing? The time between the next step simply becomes longer.

Ronan and Adam had waltzed their way through history together, even if Ronan only fancied himself a dancer when drunk and Adam found his steps to be too unpolished to share with most. If time itself was the dance floor, they’d stepped onto it in Eden’s garden, hand in hand as they’d twirled through the beginnings of Man. They’d taken somber steps through the Great Flood and bowed their heads at the sight of Christ’s crucifixion. Rome had passed in a chassé of luxury, and the fall of it in a sharp turn out of the way.

Any dance has an infinite number of moves to it, but there are always the steps that stand out amongst the basic form and the timed steps. The details that you remember long after the dance is over. A break in a set of side-by-sides into a trip-dip, an arm raised for a moment longer and leading into a spin.

It was often that Adam and Ronan reflected on the moments that stood out from their millenniums-old dance.

THE ‘20S HAD STARTED OFF WITH A BANG, as they did for everyone. The nightclubs and speakeasies in New York had proven to be an inextensible resource to them both, with Heaven too prude to enter and with Hell focusing much more on the darker aspects of the business to care what went on inside. Ronan had met Adam one night at the Cosmonaut, catching the angel’s hand and pulling him to the dance floor. He had been easy to spot, hair unruly and out of place compared to the coiffed birds, and his was suit too well-made to fit in with the others.

It was so perfectly Adam. He had to look away, praying his feet could still lead while his mind wandered elsewhere - somewhere that this could be just a dance and where the temptations he’d created for himself would be his goal, not his distraction from the task at hand.

“The walls have ears,” the Angel reminded him, drawing him back to reality. He leaned back into his step as the songs grew sultry, brass blaring enough that their volume was inconsequential.

“As though any ear’s sober enough to hear us now,” the Demon snarked back. “I need something from you. I wrote it down.” He turned Adam until they were stepping side by side, and when they closed the position again, he pressed a paper into the Angel’s hand. He could see him glance up to read it on the next turn, and when Ronan brought their hands back down, Adam’s eyes glared at him in fear and anger and worry.

“This had better be a fucking joke, Lynch.” His heart clenched as Adam made a show of dropping it on the floor, stepping on it as Ronan led him into a swing out. It left a pile of ash in its stead. “I’m not doing that.”

“I need it,” Ronan insisted as he caught him. “What if things go wrong? You know your side won’t take me in. I need insurance.” His pleas fell on unwilling ears, though, as Adam caught his hand halfway through the next turn. Ronan indulged him, though he didn’t like losing his control to Adam’s lead.

“Holy Water?” The words weighed a ton when said aloud. “You’re literally asking me to bring you your suicide. I’m not doing that.”

“I don’t want to have to use it,” the Demon hissed as he was thrown into a dip. “It’s a last resort.”

“It’s too much fucking trouble. For both of us,” Adam hissed right back. “If the... if my associates found out I’d been fraternizing with you…”

“What the- ‘Fraternizing’?” Ronan could feel something dying behind his eyes, catching fire along with his plans. He was falling, falling, falling again. “That’s what we’re calling it, Parrish?”

“Whatever you want to call it.” Adam swung Ronan out in a huff, his fingertips slipping away as the Demon stumbled slightly backwards. “It’s out of the question, Ronan. Don’t ask about it again.”

He didn’t look back to Ronan. The temptation would be too much if he did.

THEY DIDN’T CLOSE THE SWING-OUT until the ‘40s came around. To a human, the dance would have been long considered over by now, but to an angel and a demon, it was the blink of an eye.

They would be coming soon, Adam knew. After all, it’d been him that had arranged to meet with this round of saboteurs as soon as they hit stateside.

They’d agreed on an old Virginia church as their meeting point, to Adam’s chagrin, and so he stepped gingerly through the rows of pews to stand by the altar, a file full of blueprints and maps in hand. They were important documents, needless to say. He was sure the Third Reich would love to have them. He kept himself still and his breathing calm; any betrayal would go badly if you were nervous enough to show it. With all the confidence he could muster, he gave a faint smile when the saboteurs walked into the room.

“Gentlemen,” he drawled, the facade of a well-to-do military official masking the angelic mechanic well. “Glad to see that you could make it.”

“Likewise,” Baumer replied, nodding to Adam. The angel let out a silent sigh of relief. So it was still on; Hans hadn’t the faintest idea what was going to happen. “You are sure that no one followed you here?”

“Not a soul,” he promised. He slowly made his way towards them, placing the file in Baumer’s care. As the weight left his hands, it felt like a ton of bricks had been put on his shoulders.

Hans finally piped up. “It’s all there?”

“Every last bit. The P51 plans and directions for how to get to them. No one knows I got ‘em, and besides us, no one else knows how to get in, so I doubt they’ll figure it out.”

“No one besides us… I like the way that sounds,” agreed Hans. With a smirk, he reached to his side, a flash of metal confirming Adam’s suspicions as the saboteur pointed his gun at him. “But I think our definition of “us” may be different.” 

He told himself to not worry, that it was all going to plan, but he let the look cross his face in order to keep up that facade. “It’s nothing personal, Mr. Parrish,” Hans crooned. “But we don’t leave loose ends behind.”

“Course you don’t,” agreed Adam, “but you might want to take your focus off this one.” He waited for the sound of Baumer’s safety clicking off and for the sight of his gun trained on his partner, for this to all be over with and so that the world could go on as it was supposed to.

That sight never came, but the sound did.

“No loose ends here,” Baumer said instead, pointing his pistol at Adam with a laugh. “Did you really think they’d send people who’d defect after last time? They figured you’d try to turn the mission around like last time. We… let’s say we doubted you’d figure it out.” He chuckled at the prospect of turning the Angel’s words against him, jabbing the muzzle of the gun into his chest.

Slowly, as though in a dream, Adam put his hands up, the last of his will going into keeping him from taking a step back. The saboteurs’ words became blurry as they laughed again, and he wasn’t sure what language anyone was speaking anymore. There was nothing in the chapel anymore except him, the gun, and the words _failure, failure_ dancing around his head.

The thundering of Ronan’s swears jolted him from his thoughts.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Adam faltered as the Demon scrambled down the aisle, feet not touching the ground a second longer than they had to. Hans trained his weapon on him, struggling to keep its aim with the amount Ronan was moving. It would have been a funny sight - a severe-looking man clad in all black dancing on his tiptoes - had it not been for the gravity of the situation.

“I’m saving your ass from these fuckwads, Parrish,” hissed Ronan, gesturing vaguely to the saboteurs. 

“How’d you even know this was happening?” the Angel huffed. “Don’t tell me this was your idea, Lynch.”

“You’re in luck; it’s not. Even I can’t think up things as fucked up as genocide.” There was a level of disdain in the Demon’s voice that made Adam believe it.

“Enough talking,” snapped Baumer, training a gun on Ronan. “Another word out of either of you, and you’re both dead!”

“You should really hear me out first,” Ronan managed to hiss out. There was enough intrigue in the Nazis that their arms relaxed a bit. “There are other operatives that know we’re here. They’re coming. I mean, fuck, I can tell you exactly when they’ll be here.” Adam watched, befound as Ronan made a show of rolling up his sleeve to look at his watch. He got the feeling that he was enjoying it, with the looks of confused frustration on the Nazi’s faces. “Exactly 64 seconds from now, we have men with orders to light the fuse on this place.”

“That’s too exact,” sputtered Hans. “You’re bluffing.”

“Maybe. But what’s the point of fucking around just to find out.” He gave a shark like grin. “I could be lying, or I could have _Devils_ playing on my side.” A rather pointed look told Adam that was important. “And,” he continued, “We’re willing to martyr ourselves for it too. Only a _real miracle_ could save any of us.”

Oh.

 _Oh_.

Adam closed his eyes and began to pray silently as Baumer began to laugh, Hans joining in.

And then came the beeping. All sound stopped, and the worry was tangible in the air.

Then came the blast. It was loud enough to nearly deafen even an angel, and Adam had to focus to uphold the Miracle that kept him and Ronan from discorporating.

“Parrish,” called Ronan, his voice ringing. “Parrish, it’s done.” He opened his eyes to the Demon kicking rubble into the perfect circle that had surrounded them.

“Guess that’s that taken care of…” Adam let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “I guess thanks is in order?”

“Don’t you fucking dare,” said Ronan. He meant it; he had to, because any thanks would be too suspicious, but there was no bite to it.

And then Adam remembered the plans. The plans he’d given to Baumer. The ones that weren’t in the circle.

“Oh Lo- shit,” he lamented, burying his face in his hands. “The Blueprints…”

A sharp cut of laughter came from Ronan, and he sauntered to the edge of the circle. The dead Nazi’s hand had fallen just inside it, and he too took the blueprints from him to give to Adam. “ _Nos miracula creamus_ ,” he said, a bit sarcastically. “If you can call a demon’s work ‘miraculous’. Policing of that word is shit...”

The Angel stared at the papers in his hands. Not a single wrinkle on them. His eyes met Ronan’s for a moment in words he could not find.

“Opal’s waiting in the car,” he said to Adam as he pulled his eyes away. “Let’s get you out of here, Parrish.”

“I GOT IT FROM DECLAN.” 

Ronan jolted in spite of himself as he slid into the car’s seat. Outside, the crowd blared over the sounds of the Pink Floyd concert, but the inside of the car was deathly silent as he turned to face Adam. The Angel held the thermos gingerly, as though he held a grenade instead of a red metallic canister.

For all intents and purposes, he was.

There was a soft waver in his voice, almost hidden by the drawl, but it was more than enough for Ronan to hear as he said, “I don’t know if he knows why I asked for it. But if he does, he didn’t say anything about it.”

“I don’t understand,” said Ronan, voice barely above a whisper.

“You keep thinking about it,” Adam insisted. “I can see it in your eyes. I don’t want you to have a suicide pill, Ronan.” Gently, he traced the lettering that ran down the container, contemplating. “But if it’s going to take that look out of your eyes… I’d rather you have it than have to see that look. Just take it, Ronan,” he added, thrusting the thermos into his hands.

The demon stared at it for a moment, tracing where Adam had not seconds before. “He just gave it to you?” he wondered. “Must’ve been out of his fucking mind.”

Adam laughed softly. “Either that or he has a soft spot somewhere in there. I didn’t tell him why I needed it, but he still let me take it.”

“Then what do you need in return? A thanks?”

“Better not, Lynch.” He gave the BMW’s dashboard a well meaning pat. “Maybe you’d let me see what’s under her hood sometime instead.”

“You can do it now,” Ronan insisted. “I’ll drive you home and you can take a look.” He reached his hand towards Adam’s as he said this. “Honestly, I think I’d drive you anywhere right now if you asked me to…”

He hesitated, but pulled his hand away as a sad smile graced his lips. “ _Vetitus fructus_ ,” Adam said, barely audible. Neither dared to meet the other’s eyes. “Not with the sides we’re on.”

* * *

END OF INTERMISSION

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Latin in this scene:  
> Nos miracula creamus - We create miracles  
> Vetitus Fructus - Forbidden Fruit
> 
> Yessie's cool dance terminology corner:  
> I chose to focus on Lindy Hop swing for the dance metaphor in the first part of this piece - It really fit the 20s vibe (as it came from 1920s Harlem) and I also just really love Lindy Hop!! I think "side-by-side" and turns are pretty self explanatory, but one big thing I reference is a swing-out - If you want a better idea of it, [this is what it looks like!](https://youtu.be/M-tCBzpRAEk?t=165)


	15. Act Three, Scene One

### ACT THREE, SCENE ONE

THE BINDER WAS GONE.

Blue paced about her room, searching for it under piles of clothes and papers and fabric, dumping her bag again and again. She wasn’t sure how she’d lost a book that weighed about five pounds in her arms and that weighed a ton on the fate of everything itself, but it had vanished into thin air. 

“Any luck?”

She turned to face them, her mother and Persephone standing in the doorframe. Blue shook her head, the silence weighty upon her.

“It’ll still be alright, I think,” Persephone said quietly. “I think fate accounts for these things. Or does it work around these things?” She twisted her hair in thought, muttering soft words under her breath. Blue was sure Persephone was right, as she usually was, but the knot in her stomach about the world’s fate resting on her felt all the more real now.

Two days left.

She could feel time pressing down on her.

Her mother sat down next to her on the bed, mattress dipping a bit as she did so.

Into Blue’s hands, she thrust an old recipe box. She opened it curiously, paging through notecards upon notecards of prophecies. Words she could remember from them being printed upon the papers stowed in the binder. Gwen’s prophecies.

“They aren’t complete,” Maura warned. “I never got to finish them for you. But they’re a start.”

“Are there any… for now?” Blue asked.

She shook her head. “Not any of the ones you’ve memorized; if there are any for now, they’re ones that… haven’t found their place in the puzzle just yet.”

Nodding solemnly, Blue gazed into the box again. The cards stared at her like familiar friends, though none were the ones she’d poured her heart into knowing.

“It’d make me feel better if I could tell you to forget about it,” admitted Maura, watching Blue gingerly run her fingers across the cards. “If I could pull you out of all this and tell you the world wasn’t ending.” Instead, she put her hand over Blue’s. “These are your cards to read, Blue. If you find any useful, use them well.”

ADAM’S HANDS SHOOK as he flipped the binder closed. Scattered about the desk were countless pages of notes, figures and dates, as well as a sticky glass of sweet tea that he figured he should dump out. 

She knew. She had lived six hundred years before any of this began. He’d probably crossed paths with her more times than he could’ve counted, before the reformation began and he’d taken to America to keep up with Ronan. He’d heard her name whispered in the courts of Henry the Fourth, known that she was on the list of people England had wanted to see gone, and yet he’d never thought of her twice, not until now. And she’d known it all. 

In a flurry of motion, he scrambled for the notepad, flipping through until he saw it - the year of her birth preceded by the devil’s number, subtracting one. He waited with baited breath as he punched it into his phone, silence reigning as he waited for it: _The screech of a bird and voices three,_ Gwenllian had written.

“Hello?” Asked the voice at the end of the line.

In the background, he heard two other boys yelling, a crash, and the ever recognizable caw of a raven. “Careful!” one of them yelled, “If you get in the way, I’ll throw you out.”

“Did… you need something?” the speaker asked again.

“Sorry ‘bout that,” Adam barely breathed. “Right number.”

The phone clattered to the floor as he hung up.

THERE ARE SOME THINGS THAT NEITHER ANGELS NOR DEMONS CAN SEE. They’re both perceptive beings, but perception alone cannot help when you’re looking for something meant to be hidden.

Ronan trode up the black tar driveway with Opal in tow, her oversized-rain boots clonking their merry way behind him. He kept his hands shoved in his pockets until he reached the door, knocking heavily. Footsteps echoed from inside until the door was flung open.

“Do you have an appointment?” The woman gruffed, looking Ronan and Opal up and down. Her eyes burned, and her deep purple lipstick and amber eyeshadow only helped them to bore into Ronan in a way that, were he human, would rival his own.

He could respect that.

“Noon. I’m Ronan. This is my niece, Opal. She’s tagging along.” Opal stuck her tongue out to punctuate the thought.

“Calla.” She opened the door, letting them both in. “You’ll have to pay for her, too.”

“I figured. But I want info first.” He followed as she led them to the sitting room, three chairs waiting around a round table. Opal scrambled into her chair as Calla sank into hers. Ronan sat unceremoniously in his, saying, “I know you work with more… esoteric forces.”

Calla let out a laugh. “That’d be why most people come here. A glimpse behind the veil, a look into the future… Well, as close as they can get to it.”

“So do you or not?”

“We do,” she promised, “But if you’re looking for specifics, I’d suggest going to someone who works in lies and half-truths.”

Ronan considered for a moment. “I’m not looking for that. I want ears to the ground. Something’s happening this weekend, and I want info on anything with an uncanny aura enough to be involved.” He left his own words in vague, half truths. Humans didn’t historically take the truth of the matter well.

The psychic regarded him for a moment before reaching her manicured-hand across the table. He hesitated, and so Opal lifted his hand to rest it into Calla’s. 

Her eyes jolted open.

“I don’t know what you are, but you’re not one of us.” Carefully, she let Ronan’s hand go. “Something doesn’t want me to know what you are. Funny. But I can tell - you’re quite the snake, aren’t you?” He shifted more uncomfortably than he wanted to admit at her saying that. “Tell me,” she mused. “If you get the information you want, snake, will you still strike?”

His palms grew hot as she awaited his answer. “I don’t know.”

Laughing again, she stood to her feet. “I’ll keep what you asked in mind.”

With a huff, the Demon tossed two crumpled twenties onto the table. “I guess that’s all I can ask for. You have my number.” To Opal, he added, “Come on, short stuff, let’s go.”

Calla opened the door for them as they left. “I think you’ll find that it will all fall into place, Mr. Lynch. That much I can see.”

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big thanks to [Gthechangeling](http://gthechangeling.tumblr.com) for the amazing art that goes with this scene!!


	16. Act Three, Scene Two

### ACT THREE, SCENE TWO

NOAH LIKED MONMOUTH MANUFACTURING from the moment he’d stepped inside. It was like a snapshot of everything he’d wished for the first time he was alive all in one place. A chaotic assortment of projects and the starts of them, the makeshift apartment’s floor littered by games and plants growing from jars and, for some strange reason, a pool table and a bed. 

In short, it was a paradise.

He woke up that morning to some whooping from the bathroom, Gansey running in only to come back out with a salvaged toaster and with Henry carrying a plate of slightly-charred toaster waffles. “Do you want one?” Henry asked. Hunger outweighed the disdain of the bathroom-toaster. It was a bit cold in the middle, somehow, but not cold enough for Noah to care; he’d had his fair share of cold waffles in his lifetime.

From the windowsill, a raven cawed, and Gansey brought a waffle to it. It krekked in appreciation as he asked, “Are you feeling any better?” 

Noah nodded slowly as he took in the situation again. Words couldn’t describe the pleasant strangeness of it all. “Yeah, thanks guys.” He gave a slight smile. “Sorry for crashing in on you last night.”

“Hey, don’t be sorry. Always happy to help out a fellow student.” Noah looked to what he was wearing - an Aglionby Academy uniform. So Aglionby was still there. He felt both a sense of fear and relief. He knew what kind of people they were. His people.

It made who he was all the more suspicious.

“Right… yeah.”

“What even happened, oh great Apparition?” Noah froze when Henry asked him this, and even though his eyes told him that he didn’t know the truth - he couldn’t; could he? - it was almost as though Henry knew something. Noah tore his gaze away.

“I… Don’t remember. I must have blanked on it.” It wasn’t a lie - the time between living and death and living again was something fuzzy and intangible, and the more he tried to remember, the more he forgot.

Henry nodded, a bit slowly, but he didn’t press. “It’ll come back if it’s supposed to,” he decided, and Noah sighed in relief.

“If you want to know, though,” Gansey cut in, “I have someone we can ask.”

“WHAT IF WE KNEW WHERE HE WAS?” Adam asked Declan.

He and Matthew both turned to look at him, and though Matthew seemed curious, Declan’s eyes were boring into him as though looking for anything to scrutinize. His gaze softened ever so softly, and Adam let out a silent sigh of relief.

If only he knew.

“What do you mean by that?” he asked.

“If we knew where the Antichrist was, couldn’t we fix all of this? We could… Take him out, pretend this all never happened.”

“The world gets another chance?” Matthew asked.

“It changes nothing,” Declan declared. He looked out the glass-panes that surrounded the office, a prince looking over lands that were not quite his but may well have been. “Everything is going according to schedule. It’s all been decided, way before any of us had any say in it.”

“We’re supposed to protect humanity, though.” Adam chose his words carefully, clinging to reason. “This… Well, it’s the opposite. It’s contradictory.”

Declan turned back to Adam before he had a chance to continue. “You’re starting to sound like him.”

A soft gasp came from Matthew. Adam could feel his ears going pink.

They had all known Reginum - known Ronan - before he had fallen. He had been an Angel like any of the others had been. The creations of something more. Created to dream, to create. And Reginum had been the biggest dreamer of them all.

And then something in him had changed. Something had happened, and suddenly it became all questions and paranoia. Why plan to destroy what is created? Why bring out the bad from good? If they were to protect man, who would protect them.

His questions lead to bigger dreams, and they became greyer and greyer. A shade of grey barely close enough to be black, but dark enough to where he was cast out with the blasphemous lot.

Matthew and Declan had once been close to him. He was a sore subject.

“I don’t mean it like that.” Adam whispered, though he couldn’t find the words.

Declan’s gaze burned into him again, longer and more intense. It was icy enough to prove that Angels and Demons had once been of the stock.

“Watch how your words sound,” he recommended. “Keep up the work, Adam.”

His ears burned as he left the Archangel behind.


	17. Act Three, Scene Three

### ACT THREE, SCENE THREE

“I LOST THE BOOK,” Blue admitted. She kept staring at her feet as she said it, and though Gansey hadn’t known her for long, he could tell it wasn’t a sight that was often seen. Without a word, he opened the warehouse door for her, leading her up the staircase and into the apartment-part of Monmouth. It was a strange place that screamed both dream and reality all at once, with furniture piled into what had been the company floor and offices as bedrooms. Chainsaw gave a screech as they walked in, flapping enthusiastically over to Blue and offering a krek in greeting.

She seemed so unfazed by it all, only slightly taken aback by the raven and seemingly growing warmer to her by the second.

Blue Sargent just felt like she belonged.

“Triple B!” Henry cheered as they walked through the door. “Beloved Blue and the Book!” He plopped himself onto the couch next to Noah. 

She gave him a forlorn smile, joining Gansey as he sat next to his cardboard towns. “Beloved Blue sans one book, actually.” She only noticed Noah once he was sitting next to her, and she startled at his presence. “There’s another one of you?” she asked, looking him up and down.

“That’s Noah,” Henry explained. “Showed up out of the blue last night, crashed with us. He’s our cool couch-crashing buddy now.”

With a kind smile, Noah offered his hand to Blue. “Jeez,” she exclaimed as her hand met his. “Are your hands always this cold?”

“I was dead for seven years,” Noah answered. “I’m honestly kind of surprised they’re this warm. What’s the book?”

He’d seemed so much like part of the group that morning, and it was only then that Gansey realized Noah hadn’t always been. “Blue’s family’s full of psychics,” he explained, looking to her so as to not mess up. “And she has some kind of book of prophecies we wanted to look at. I was thinking you could look too.”

“It would have been a nice offer,” he said, but he looked almost relieved that there was no book for him to read. But then something in his look changed. He thought for a moment before turning to Gansey, asking, “But… Why did you need a book of prophecies?”

The mask that he saved only for family and for the public suddenly came to mind. It was a strange feeling when the room was split: One who already knew, one who did not, and one who only knew the surface of the iceberg that was Gansey. Usually the number of people he wore the mask for outweighed the number he didn’t, and so the choice was usually obvious. Taking in a shaky breath, he considered before settling on what to do, and the mask clattered to the back of his mind.

“Because,” he explained. “Those prophecies saved my life.” 

His words were weighty as they hung in the air, bombs that had yet to go off. When they didn’t, he continued. “When I was eleven, my parents took me to a party. A work event. And I was playing a game with the other kids; it was hide and seek, or tag, or something.” He could remember it so clearly. “There were a bunch of trees in the backyard. Oaks. And when I went to hide in them…” Gansey sighed, his breath weighing heavy. “It seemed like a great place to hide. And it was so late… I thought it wouldn’t be an issue. You only really see moths and mosquitos at night, and I couldn’t have expected it, but then maybe I should have…” He could feel the same pit of dread as he did when he heard that crunch years ago. “There was a hornet nest on the ground. I stepped on it; I didn’t see it. I died that night.

“And then… well, I was alive again.” Out of habit, he looked to his arms as if he expected them to be riddled with welts as they were seven years ago. Often, he did expect them. “I saw three figures. Glowing, spectral things; I don’t know what they were.” Gansey looked up, looked to Blue. “They said ‘You will live because of the Prophecies of Glendower’.”

The silence permeated the room and Gansey closed his eyes, worried that the weight of what he’d said would crush them all. “They’re… interesting prophecies,” Blue finally said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if there really was one for you. I’ll look.”

His eyes shot open. “For the book?”

Shaking her head, Blue replied, “For the prophecy.”

“I thought you said you lost them,” noted Noah, “Or am I missing something?”

“I lost the book, but… There may be another place to look. They’re out of order and they don’t have all the notes we’ve written on them, but we have them. We wouldn’t keep just one copy of something that important,” she added.

“If we can find them like Madame Sargent said, then count me in on the investigation team,” Henry announced, smiling bright.

“Me too,” Noah agreed. They all turned to look to him, and while something seemed so strange that he’d agreed so quickly, there was a burning in his gaze that made him fall into place. A desire they all knew so well that it made him mesh into the group seamlessly. “If everything is as connected as you think it is… I need to see where this goes.”

“With a kick-ass team like this, we’ll see where it goes and farther!” Henry let out a shout. “This is great, G-Man, finally a road to search in your Noble Quest!”

Blue jumped to her feet, grabbing Gansey’s hand and pulling him up with her. “We’re going to unravel this tangle of fates!” she roared to the group, and he would have believed her without her confidence, without Noah and Henry’s cheers, without even the promise of a pile of prophecies. His eyes caught hers, and she smiled.

“You beautiful creature,” he mused. He meant it in more ways than one. “Let’s plan our attack.”

They didn’t plan their attack that day, instead leading a siege upon the aisles of the dollar mart to collect their supplies - blank notebooks and pencils, snacks and index cards; not one was safe from their search. There were hoots of laughter even as the rather disgruntled clerk scanned their items and ushered them out into the Henrietta summer sun.

And something in Gansey felt alive, alive, alive.

COLIN GREENMANTLE, like the woman he often went hand-in-hand with, always hungered for more than he had. He had an odd way of showing it, as he liked lurking where he wasn’t seen best.

He was a television producer, the man behind Nightly Variety. It ran from ten to two every night, just after primetime where if you weren’t careful enough to power off after your program, you’d be sucked into the honeyed words about the latest fasting diet fads and exercise equipment. There was a news section in Nightly Variety, too, though it often only showed dull stories and half truths that all the viewers would forget. 

After penciling in the next episode’s schedule, he took a flip through the news stories and a frown crossed his face. A story covering events in a war zone of some third-world country. It was a piece written by the show’s latest writer-wannabe, and he tore it to shreds. War looked good on tv, but he could accept that the famine the intern had written about did not. He couldn’t let a story about the terrors of starvation be shown on his show. Not when starvation was what so many of his stories banked on.

The next thing in the pile was a delivery notice. He went to the lobby to pick it up.

Waiting in the lobby was an old friend - at least, he considered him that, though the look on Grey’s face said the feeling was not mutual. There had been plenty of bad blood spilled between them - most of it from progressives hoping to bring peace. Colin couldn’t have that. Not when it would ruin his work so. He’d quit out of guilty conscience years ago, but with the shadow that hung around Grey, it was hard to find work that wasn’t of similar caliber.

It made him ideal to bring instruments of destruction.

“It’s been a while,” he said to Grey, taking the clipboard from his hands with a smile.

"It has,” Grey agreed. He held the box out to Colin and waited for him to finish signing, shifting his focus to the task at hand.

Carefully, Colin lifted the contents of the package from the box - a set of metal scales, gracefully balanced. His smile turned to a grin as he said, “I’ll be there.”

“This feels strange for you,” noted Grey. “Scales almost don’t seem to fit you.”

He offered a smile in kind. “Things change,” he said in the voice he saved for network executives. “And with the way the world’s going… Well, let’s say that some things have to end.”


	18. Act Three, Scene Four

### ACT THREE, SCENE FOUR

GANSEY COULDN’T SLEEP THAT NIGHT.

In all fairness, Gansey couldn’t sleep most nights. Insomnia was a cruel game he was forced to play, filled with days of the bare minimum of sleep. Some were interrupted by long but unsatisfying afternoon naps, and others were blessed with a night or two of something actually restful.

That didn’t mean there weren’t still crap shoots.

He sat up in bed, warm breeze blowing in through the windows of Monmouth manufacturing. Noah lay in dead slumber on the couch, and even the lights that often seeped from under Henry’s door were out. Even Chainsaw had tucked her head under her wing, peacefully asleep on the windowsill. He didn’t know what time it was, and he didn’t want to know.

Dark moonlight danced across the floor as he got out of bed, pulling on slippers and padding out the door. Sometimes a reset was helpful - a lap around the building could sometimes convince his mind that he’d done enough to sleep.

A gentle glinting caught his eye, and he picked it up without thinking on his way outside, carefully tapping through the numbers. He closed the door behind him and waited for the dial tone to end before he could process what it was he was doing.

“Hello?” came Blue’s voice from the end of the line.

“Hi,” he said warmly. “It’s me. Uh, it’s Gansey, I mean.”

“Oh, hi,” she replied, and he felt that he could feel warmth coming back from her. “Sorry, I didn’t recognize your number. You know, you’re one digit off from congress.”

“Oh?”

“Mmhm,” she said, taking a pause. He heard something clatter in the background, like metal in a sink. “Because your phone number ends in 6-6-7.”

“Oh… Ohh, I see,” he laughed.

“What’s up?”

“Just wanted to check in,” Gansey lied. “And to thank you for today.” That part was the truth, and his voice softened even more as he said it.

“You don’t have to thank me,” she said. “Any reason you picked 10:02 to call?”

10:02. So it hadn’t been as long as he thought. 

“Well, I couldn’t think of a reason not to.” He stared out to the streets and the hills beyond them. “There’s a place I think we should go, if we have time after prophecy hunting. To search, I mean,” he clarified. “There’s this forest I keep driving past. It’s off the highway, and then you still have to drive up this long dirt path to get to it. But it falls on the ley line.” Blue didn’t interrupt him the way that Helen did, nor did she question things like his father. She listened, and he kept talking. “It’s on someone’s property, I think. I never asked, but maybe I can now. It’s beautiful, really green and just…”

“It sounds magical,” she breathed. “I’d love to go. I think we should. If not tomorrow, then another day.”

His heart swelled with the eagerness he’d felt when Henry had agreed to take the search up with him ages before. Something more than that, warmer and faster than he would have expected, and he stood there in silence for a moment. “I’d like that.”

She laughed softly, like bells. “We’ll do it. Now we have to.”

They stayed like that for a while as Gansey stared into the night, with the occasional comment here and there. Sometimes the best way to stop being lonely is to just know that you’re not alone.

“I think I need to sleep,” she finally admitted. “You can call me whenever, I guess. Even if it’s something serious or like… Some random fact. About ducks or something.”

Gansey laughed as he went back inside, climbing the stairs again. “I’ll go to sleep too,” He agreed. “I think that I can now.”

ADAM’S CAR SPUTTERED INTO PARK just on the edge of the driveway. The air above the Barns had grown dark and cloudy, putting everyone’s mood more on edge. Or perhaps it was the Barns’ weather meeting their mood. He wasn’t sure which.

“Any luck?” Ronan asked as Adam slammed the car door shut. He neither nodded nor shook his head. 

“Luck with what?” he asked.

“The Antichrist, for whoever’s fucking sake. I’ve got jack shit, you?”

“If I did, I’d say something,” he lied, staring down the road. It was empty; it always was when he and Ronan met, cracks in the asphalt smoothed over with good intentions to make it driveable, though it never quite worked. His intentions had been good, too, but it all seemed to go downhill too fast. “The plan’s all in motion, probably harder to find stuff as it goes on.” Silence followed.

Ronan gave a huff after a minute, walking over to the gravel driveway and kicking it. The rocks flew everywhere as he let out a yell, and Adam was glad there was no one else to hear it. “Someone-damn the stupid fucking Divine Plan!”

An uncanny chill gusted through the air. “Maybe you’ll be forgiven,” Adam finally said, mouth dry.

“You and I both know that’s not happening,” he hissed. “That’s the literal job description. Cast away, never to return, never to be forgiven.”

“We were on the same side once, Lynch,” Adam reasoned.

“We were on the same side ages ago.” He paced across the driveway a couple of times, seething fading away to shaking breaths. Adam’s words stuck in his throat, seeing Ronan in such rare form. He’d seen him upset, of course, but never over something that meant this much to him.

He couldn’t tell him every piece was in place. He gave him the space to cool down instead.

“We have to find him,” the Demon decided. “There has to be away. We find him, and we… We get rid of him.”

Adam stood dumbstruck. “That last bit had better be a joke.”

“Do you have any other ideas?”

He didn’t, but something felt wrong about killing the Antichrist, even if he were Hell Incarnate itself. He didn’t ask to be. “Well, I can’t be the one to do it… Lynch, I think you’d have to.”

“What, because I’m the demon?”

“Heaven can’t wash blood out of its feathers.”

“And we’re already drenched in it. Yeah, right. Doesn’t mean I want to fucking kill someone. You can’t kill one person to save everyone? Well, aren’t you being holier-than-thou,” the Demon spat.

“That’s because I fucking am. You said it, not me.”

The storm clouds rumbled in the distance, punctuating the conversation. Neither dared to leave for fear of losing until at last, Ronan said, “You’re unbelievable, Parrish. I’m going home.”

“For how long?” Adam caught Ronan’s hand, keeping him from walking away as the dam broke. “A day? Two? And what comes after that. There's going to be nowhere left for us. Only for us separated.” 

“There has to be somewhere, Adam. It’s a big universe.”

“But is it big enough to run from this?”

“It’s gotta be,” Ronan pleaded, resting his forehead against Adam’s. For the first time in centuries, he saw fear in the Demon’s eyes, and something more along with it. He stayed frozen in shock and silence for what felt like an eternity, and for a moment it felt like if he and Ronan stayed like that, everything would be alright. He knew it wouldn’t, but how he wanted it to be.

Without a word, he led Ronan to the porch, sitting with him and staring out over everything that would soon be lost.

“If this is all going to be gone,” Ronan finally said to him, “Can I ask you for a miracle? Just the one, Angel.”

“What is it?”

He barely had time to ask before Ronan’s lips met his. 

It was soft, as if they were barely there, and Adam closed his eyes to block everything else out. Thunder cracked, and the rain poured down to drench them, the familiar feeling of potential from millennia ago rushing back to him all at once. Every garden of Eden and speakeasy, every silent moment in the BMW’s passenger seat all at once. 

Every moment that had felt so right that he could say with little doubt that both Heaven and Hell would call it wrong. 

But in that moment, none of it mattered. 

The Demon’s lips brushed away from his own, and there was a tension as neither dared to crash back into the other. “Let’s just go off together, Adam,” he begged. “Please.”

A sad smile graced Adam’s lips, and he tried to keep the floodgates closed. He stood to his feet. “That’s the one miracle I can’t give you.”

He knew that moment would never come again.

He let the rain drench him as he walked back to the car.

* * *

END OF ACT THREE


	19. Act Four, Scene One

### ACT FOUR, SCENE ONE

GANSEY WOKE UP FEELING INCOMPLETE.

It was a feeling he’d grown used to as the years went on; a feeling like being a prince of all and none all at once. The feeling of something missing that he’d been searching for since he’d seen the spectres and heard the voices; the search he’d never completed.

And yet the incompletion he felt as he woke up wasn’t the same longing he felt in his heart. It was the incompletion of anticipation, of knowing that things would be over when you didn’t want them to be.

He rolled out of bed, and all of Monmouth’s windows were dark with sunrise. His watch read 6:21 AM. Noah was asleep on the couch, and no light seeped from under Henry’s door. It wasn’t worth him even trying to go back to sleep, and so he wandered his way into the kitchen. The orange juice in the fridge was a welcome sight, and he set it on the counter as he sifted around for any kind of microwave breakfast.

“Morning, G Man.”

“Morning,” he replied, turning to see Henry taking a seat on the counter. “Did I wake you up…?”

“Nah,” he replied, waving his hand. “I think I got hungry in a dream, so here I am. Where are the pop tarts? Couldn’t sleep?”

“Cabinet above your head,” Gansey replied to the first question. “I slept more than usual,” he said to the second. He cracked an egg into the breakfast cup he’d found, stirring it absent-mindedly.

“Well, knowing you, that could be four hours or eight, Richard Insomniac III.” Henry ate his pop tarts cold, a rare occurrence but an inevitable one, with the toaster broken.

The microwave beeped as Henry asked, “Something happened, didn’t it?”

It was silent in the kitchen because Henry knew the answer, and Gansey knew that he knew. They were different, abundantly clear in the everything about them, and yet they were similar in more ways than Gansey could count. In words, Henry was showy and bright, mirroring a side of his personality that he displayed to the world. And then there was his other half, equally there and present but working in the background; a side that the outside world couldn’t see. _My native language is thought_ , he’d said once, and Gansey believed him fully. His wheels were always turning, and so he knew that he’d put two and two together.

“I think everything is ending.” They weighed more said aloud. “It’s a feeling, but I think it is. And I know this is what I’ve been working towards, but…” his words trailed off, and the look in Henry’s eyes said that he knew.

“Change is a cruel mistress, G,” he mused. “One that always comes with a cost. Literally.”

“Terrifying words.”

“But they’re true, too.” He set the pop tart on the counter, leaping off of it in favor of pacing the kitchen. “Easy to be afraid of it. I think that’s why so many are stuck.” Henry paused in thought again. “Some people are scared because of complacency. Greedy people scared of losing what they have. Corporations. That shit. They let people suffer because they’re too scared of losing themselves to feel bad.

“But some people are scared because of the unknown. They’re scared that they’ll run out. But… I don’t think that being afraid helps it. You don’t have to only feel afraid, Gansey,” with a smile, he said. “Other things come with change, so it can’t all end. This unknown will end. But another unknown will come too, Gans. And you look forward to that, right? So if you can… be afraid and happy.”

A slight smile crossed Gansey’s face at the advice, and he reached for the orange juice. It wasn’t there. He’d sworn he put it down.

“What’re you looking for?” Henry asked.

“Orange juice…” he sifted through the fridge again, deciding. “We must be out… I’m going to 7/11.”

“Wait for me, Master Dick!”

The dark shadow where the orange juice once was oozed into nothingness as they headed out.

GREY HAD BEEN A DELIVERY MAN of sorts for his whole life. There had been times when he delivered people to their deaths, taking out targets with a level of precision and skill that left police guessing for years. He was a little shocked that he hadn’t been caught, nonetheless. 

He had moved to package delivery after a call he hadn’t wanted to take. It was still a dangerous job, delivering dangerous things to dangerous people, but there was a level of disconnect that he enjoyed with it; knowing that the package was dangerous but not what exactly it was. He dealt with the same people, yes - Colin Greenmantle trusted no one else to deliver his vices, and Laumonier’s vials required the extra care that he could provide. 

They were reliable, if not strange clients.

He’d woken up that morning to find three items in the drop box outside his house: An envelope, a box, and a small package. Attached was a note from his neighbor: _Wrong address; could you drop this out on your route today?_ He’d inspected it, found that the address was on the way out of town, and set out onto the interstate.

The door at address 300 Fox Way was answered barely after he’d knocked once. “We’ve been expecting you,” the woman mused, taking the package out of his hands. She smiled at his expression, adding, “Come in. We’ll send you off with some tea for your long journey.”

Entranced, he found himself following her in.

The house was cosily stuffy, its inhabitants flitting between rooms with crystals and cards in hand. At the kitchen table, the woman - Maura, she’d introduced herself - sat next to two others - an unearthly woman with snow white hair and an earthly one with fire behind her eyes. “Sugar?” Maura asked, pouring tea into an evidently-readied travel mug. 

He nodded.

“You’re the grey one,” said the snow-white woman. “At least, I think.” There was something definitive, even in her admission of uncertainty, and something eerily true in what she said.

“How did you know my name?” he asked.

“I didn’t.” Tea was placed on the table, and the travel mug in front of him. “Oh. But even if the word association wasn’t there, I might have seen it. It’s on your shirt.” It took all he could to not flush faintly as he remembered the embroidered name GREY on his shirt pocket.

“Enough with the niceties,” snapped the other woman, the earthly one. “Tell him what we know.”

Maura laughed at her. “Don’t be so impatient, Calla. It’d be rude to see him off so quickly.” She took her seat next to him, and the smile she gave him was kind yet apologetic. “But she is right, Mr. Grey. We do have some information that will help you.”

Every time one of them said anything, it put Grey on edge more than he would be willing to admit. There was a gravity to their vague words; an inexplicability that meant there had to, had to be something more to what they said. His eyes narrowed. “And what is that?”

With a smile somewhere between kindness and wryness, Maura held out a deck of cards, spreading them with a flourish between her hands. "That's for you to decipher. We'll give you the outline, Grey, but that will be all it is. It's up to you to fill them in. Take three," she added.

Gingerly, he took a set of cards, drawn to them by an invisible energy.

"Persephone," barked Calla. "You start."

"The Eight of Swords," said the snow-white woman as she turned the first card, "Reversed. You've been forced to see things differently before this moment. I think twice. Once in the distant and once in the recent past." Grey nodded slowly, for she was correct. "You're looking past things as they are, and though you may not put them together now, you may find the pieces put together later."

It was Maura who flipped the second one. "The Knight of Cups," she said. "You bring a message with you, delivering it with every delivery that you've made. But it shall finally reach it's recipient soon. You must know when to take the action for this to happen."

"Death," Gruffed Calla. "The End of a Cycle. Beginnings and change." She looked up and her eyes met his. "There comes a beginning with every end. You may lose something. But you have to accept that it's for a reason." She sat back, satisfied in her work.

"Well," said Maura, "How's that for a future to fill in?" She stood to her feet, taking his arm as she led him to the door. "But you won't be on time if you don't leave now, I'm afraid."

“And what else happens if what you say is right?” He asked.

She smiled wryly, handing him the tea. “Dinner would be nice.”

THERE ARE SOME THINGS THAT NEITHER ANGELS NOR DEMONS CAN SEE. Not, at least, without knowing how to check all the correct backchannels. Not without knowing how to worm one’s way into things that are hidden from human eyes, ethereal eyes, and occult eyes alike.

In a backmost corner in the depths of hell, the eyes of a demon called Robert fell closed.

His department was in assessing threats. Taking out anything and anyone that would stand in the way of Hell’s overwhelming victory of the Forces of Heaven. There were rumors of God creating the entire plan that the Legions of Hell were creating, but he didn’t believe that per se. Heaven had it’s ways of trying to stick its fingers into their pies, and often that was done through ill-prepared rumors and weak attempts.

There wasn’t a way that the Demonic plan could fail. Not with him on damage control.

Demons didn’t really sleep, but when Robert did, he saw things. Perhaps it had been in his nature. Perhaps it was the crack in the wall through which secrets sometimes flowed through. Perhaps it was sheer demonic luck.

There’d been nothing, not for weeks, months, not for decades; only small hitches that fizzled away on their own, and so he’d taken to less-so promoting sins and more-so indulging in them. He was fallen to begin with, and so why not live in his own corner of Hellscape he’d created for himself. An excess of bottles from Satan-knows-where crowded at his feet as he drifted away.

And then all at once, centuries flashed before his eyes.

There was an angel and a demon. The former he’d known from before the fall; after all, Robert’s lashing out at him had been the final stone that had tipped the scales of his falling. The latter he knew from after; misery loves company, and even if he’d stayed away from Robert, it was natural that all the demons had gotten to know one another once they were all cornered into the depths of hell together. 

And through the centuries, Robert saw this: pure white and jet black fading into shades of grey.

He saw this: secret meetings behind buildings and in alleyways, casual drinks and laughter and already weak hatred fading away.

He saw deals made behind the backs of Heaven and Hell, a level of empathy that he found foreign.

And then after centuries, he saw this: the Antichrist thrust into Ronan’s hands. A meeting with the angel, and a handshake.

He bolted upright and his eyes shot open.

The Demonic plan had been compromised from the start, weakened by angelic influence.

And in that moment, he decided: the angel called Adam had to leave the picture.


	20. Act Four, Scene Two

### ACT FOUR, SCENE TWO

THE BARNS, AS THE NAME IMPLIED, was littered with a countless amount of them. When Ronan had created the haven back in Satan-Knows-When, he’d really only realized that human farms had barns, and he’d seen so many farms put together that he’d decided farms had many of them. By the time he’d realized, he’d grown attached to it. Besides, if he called his home the Barns, he figured it ought to live up to that name.

Just as the property itself was littered with buildings, Ronan had littered the barn closest to the house with maps and photos. “Okay, short stuff,” he said to Opal. “We’ve got to blow this joint. Where to?”

“Adam?” she offered, ripping a page from the atlas, well-meaningly putting it on the ground.

“He’s not coming,” he said bitterly. “C’mon, Opal, ideas.” He scattered the atlas pages into the air, plucking out the interesting ones before tossing them aside in distaste. “Well, the whole fucking earth is out.” Opal grabbed them as he threw them, shoving the pages into her mouth and chewing. Better to get use of them if they were off the table.

“ _Ad astra_ ,” she suggested, mouth full of California road maps.

“That’s an option.” He reached for an astronomy book, and one appeared within reach. The pages flew around as he gazed at them. Hardly any would support human life, but that was fine. He was sure that some would support demonic life. He looked past Earth-like Ymir and old Methuselah... Izanami could hold life, but it was dangerous. A lonely, desolate place where no one would look for him. Perfect for hiding.

He sighed.

It was pointless alone.

“Some shitty test this is…” he muttered, looking to the skylight for any sign that They were listening. “Tests are supposed to show growth. There’s no point if they’ll all fucking fail to begin with.”

Opal squealed when he let all the papers fall to the ground, and he slammed the barn door behind him. The tempest outside raged on, and he just let it. 

“It’s not even like I meant to fall.” He said it because it was true. And yet when push had come to shove, all it had taken was an ill-worded question overheard by an ill-meaning angel. The pearly gates had melted around him, or perhaps he melted through the clouds himself, hurtling into the fire and brimstone below. Time itself stopped, and all he could do was nosedive into it.

“I didn’t want to. The wind just blew against me.”

300 FOX WAY WAS UNLIKE ANYTHING that the Raven Boys had ever seen. It was bustling and full of excitement from the moment they stepped through the door, Blue roaring “MO-OM, I BROUGHT FRIENDS!” There had to be about X people living there, Noah decided, all of them psychics in some form. 

He liked the business of it all, with the inhabitants all flitting every which way and going about their work for the day. The phone ringing off the hook, clients being brought to the sitting room, one or two of Blue’s cousins rushing off to work in a flurry of bright colors and noise. 

It was a carnival in a house, and the show was made up of everything Noah had missed about being alive.

It was made up of potential.

It made sense that a house where futures were pulled from cards and tea leaves would be full of potential, but he hadn’t expected it to be so tangible. Noah swore he could almost feel the threads that tied his fate with Gansey, with Henry, with Blue, and all the threads that wove between them.

He’d felt that their stories, that their lives were connected before.

He was sure of it now.

Blue had taken the liberty of setting their stage the night before. Sprawled across the table were so many index cards that you could hardly tell its original form. Somehow, Blue setting an armful of yogurt containers and juice boxes upon it made it seem even less-table-like.

“There are so many,” Henry had gaped, once he’d seen all the index cards spread out.

“They look like less when they’re in the box,” Blue had explained. “Besides. They’re important. Or at least… They all have importance.” She plopped down in her seat, cracking her knuckles. “Our job is finding the ones that have importance to us right now.”

Gansey gently brushed his hand over the cards, and everyone paused to see the wonderment in his eyes. There was always wonderment there, but it shone brighter than before, magnified by the box of possibilities that sat before them all and reflected by the burning that had begun to burn behind everyone’s eyes.

It was a weighty feeling. “ _Excelsior_ ,” he breathed. “I think we’d better get started.”


	21. Act Four, Scene Three

### ACT FOUR, SCENE THREE

THE QUEST HAD PROVEN FRUITLESS in spite of their best hopes and unyielding searching. Gwenllian’s cards had always leaned towards the Enigmatic. It was hard to place even the cards foretelling Historical events when the clues were there in your face - Inedible Apples and tablets of motion. It was worse when the cards mentioned “Returns from Nothing” and “The Catalyst son of the Holy War.” The Antichrist shouldn’t exist, Noah had thought, at least not now. Even if prophecies were real, things were so… peaceful now, relative to everything.

It wasn’t until evening that the growling of Henry’s stomach reminded them of how few breaks they’d taken. 

“We forgot to eat,” he lamented.

“Let’s order pizza then,” Gansey suggested. “I think we deserve it after all this.” They all nodded in agreement, the boys handing him payment and Blue scribbling down her number for an employee discount. And then, Noah felt someone behind him.

“I have some pies I’ve been saving,” warbled Persephone. “I thawed them out so that they’d be ready for now. They should be ready for now.” She placed a cold hand on Noah’s shoulder, saying, “You… Could you help me get them? There are two.” He nodded numbly as he followed her to the dining room-turned-library, waiting as she inspected the crusts and fillings.

“Are you enjoying being back?”

She asked it so naturally that it took him a while to process before it hit him all at once. Persephone seemed unfazed as he turned to stare at her, and he froze as he saw in her eyes that she meant exactly what he feared she did.

“I won’t tell them,” she promised. “But I was curious.”

“I… Yeah…” Noah said softly as she placed one of the pies in his hands. It was peach and raspberry, the lines that made up Blue’s chalice and Gansey’s notebook cover carved into the top crust. “It feels like something I’d have missed, if I could have felt when I wasn’t.”

She nodded, gently tossing her white hair over her shoulders, picking up the second pie - apple with a lattice and a flock of ravens skirting the edge. “I think that you should tell them. Telling them is part of it, I think, but not yet.” Her words were light as a bird’s song, but their meaning weighed heavy as she said, “You’ll know when to say it.”

Her words echoed in his head as they went back to the kitchen.

JOSEPH KAVINSKY HAD FOUND HIS WAY into another den of ill repute. The Countdown was a bar hidden in the back of another one; a secret entrance leading from legal libations to things that even some demons didn’t dare dream of. A place that, Prokopenko thought, was a fitting place for the world to end, albeit ironic.

His own sense of style made him fit in perfectly as he walked into the bar, phasing in through the Countdown as if it were a perfectly natural thing. For him, it was. The music was loud and the people were louder, drinking as though it were going out of style, making out as though they’d never be able to again, fighting over dime bags as though they were the last ones on Earth.

They were right, of course. But Proko wasn’t going to tell them that.

Sitting - if you could call it that - in the middle of the mess was the Antichrist himself.

“I’ve been waiting to see you again,” Proko mused as he slinked into the seat across from Kavinsky.

“Hey, who the hell are you? Get the fuck out,” the Antichrist snarked back. He popped a bright green pill into his mouth, chasing it with some drink that glittered darkly. “Can’t you see I’m busy here?”

“We’re busy with the same thing.” He put his feet up on the table. “We’ve all waited for this day, and it’s time to start it.”

And then, he noticed something was off. Or more accurately, the absence of something was.

“There should be a bird with you,” he said aloud, over the din of noise. “Where the heaven is it?”

“Why the shit would you think I have a fucking bird?” Kavinsky roared in laughter, cruel and unforgiving, and Proko couldn’t help but think of how perfect he’d have been.

“But… the world’s ending…”

“Isn’t it always?” He took a sip from a nearby bottle and, realizing it was empty, crashed it against a wall. He pulled down his sunglasses, and in his bloodshot eyes, Prokopenko saw nothing but human adrenaline and pain and longing.

Nothing remarkable at all.

“Go find your own apocalypse, shithead.”

The demon roared in anger as he vanished from his seat.

Kavinsky asked, “What the hell was that guy’s deal?”


	22. Act Four, Scene Four

### ACT FOUR, SCENE FOUR

THE FINAL TWO DELIVERY SHEETS that Mr. Grey had were in Boston; a far drive but a doable one. It was late night before he reached the address scribbled across the clipboard; a townhouse far fancier than any townhouse had right to be. He’d been there before, as Laumonier was a frequent client of his. It looked off-putting in the dark light.

Laumonier - all three of them - worked in Environmental fields, so they liked to say. Mr. Grey believed it was a joke. The oil companies they were affiliated with were the opposite of what Environmental means. Countless leaks and spills. There had been an entire location in the Indies that had contracted some strange infections once - only those that worked for Laumonier Oil Industries.

Mr. Grey gave a sharp rap to the door, and it opened a mere crack. “Who is it?” asked the first.

“Package delivery for you. You need to sign for it,” he said dryly, though he could feel bile rising in his chest. There came a murmuring from inside until someone finally reached out to snatch away the pen and clipboard. It was returned with a messy smudge across the signature. The ink on the hand told Grey that he wasn’t going to get the pen back. 

“We’ve been waiting for this,” said the second voice.

“It’s been centuries,” laughed the third. 

Mr. Grey had no trouble believing it to be the truth. 

He handed them a box, and the door swung wide to reveal the triplets, each a mess of a man. The first took the box from Mr. Grey, the second opened it, and the third pulled out a crown. At least, he thought it was a crown - it turned to void black as soon as their hands touched it.

“You’ve brought us quite the omen,” said the second.

“We were right, the time has come,” said the first.

“Let’s get driving.” The third slammed the door in Grey’s face.

He backed away from the door, down the steps slowly and carefully, thinking over his last deliveries. 

Grey had always dealt in dangerous deliveries. Carefully, he read through the sheets. Where the lines he’d assumed read Piper and Colin Greenmantle were instead the names of two atrocities. He could guess what the triplets had signed, but the smear on the paper was as good as a death warrant.

Worry eating at him, he read the last delivery sheet.

He’d never been scared. Not in all his years of doing hit work. Never after. Yet there was a name printed there that shouldn’t be a name.

What shook him to the core was the address line.

_I’ve always been at your heels._

He whipped around in shock, and sure enough, a dark cloaked figure was behind him.

“You have something for me,” it said.

Grey nodded slowly, as if in a fog, and went back to the delivery truck. His hands shook as he opened the back. An envelope sat there. “Here it is,” he said.

“Read it.”

He gingerly pulled the envelope open, and it tore away as if shredded. With a shaky breath, he read it.

“Come and see.”

The figure laughed darkly as it rushed towards, rushed through Grey.

The reading from that morning played through his head as he blew away into ash, Calla's words echoing. 

_You may lose something. But you have to accept that it's for a reason._

How hard it was to accept death as a beginning.

“Your service tip,” the being said. “You’ll all be gone soon. Aren’t you lucky to have a head start?”

MERE SECONDS AFTER HIS ANSWERING MACHINE EXPLODED, Ronan found himself behind the wheel of the BMW, racing his way to Adam’s shop. Everything about him was racing, and if his heart could beat, it would be racing too. Even Opal, normally a cacophony of noise and movement during car rides, fell silent as she was pressed against the back seat by the car’s speeds.

They were coming.

Everything, everything had been a mistake thus far. Lying to Prokopenko and Whelk. Not picking up the phone call. Not pressing Adam to stay with him. Thinking Adam would stay at all. The plotting and the plans and everything else.

He paused as he hit the red light just across from Parrish’s. Maybe not all of them were mistakes. He hoped that they weren’t.

The BMW skidded out in front of the office door, clamoring out of the cabin, and Adam rushed out. “What the shit, Lynch?” he asked, but Ronan cut him off.

“I’m sorry, Adam.”

The Angel’s look softened. “You’re… what?”

“Look, whatever happened, I’m sorry, but we have to go. Now.” He flung the passenger door open for Adam, praying he’d get in.

“I… Look, Ronan, I don’t get it,” he said instead.

“Hell’s onto us. Well…” He ran a hand over his hair. “Hell’s onto _me_. Look, the point is things are going to fucking Heaven and back.” He flung his arm towards the car again. “But we can just blow this joint and run away. I won’t be in trouble, and you won’t ever have to worry about being in any. Just you and me, Adam,” Ronan begged. “No worries. Just ourselves and each other. Please.”

“Ronan, how’s that even going to work?” the Angel asked. “If it’s all going to shit, there’s gotta be a better way.” The two stood in terse silence. “I’ll… I’ll find some other way for us to fix everything. I’ll talk to people about it… I’ll find the right people. Just… Don’t leave, Ronan.”

He almost believed him. He wanted to.

“There are no right people,” he lamented instead. “Not when both sides want this. Not when God’s not fucking cluing anyone in.”

“If I have to take it up with God Almighty, I will.” A fire burned away in Adam’s eyes. One he knew he couldn’t touch, couldn’t be near to.

“This is… This is fucking bullshit, Parrish,” he huffed, slamming the door shut. He heard Opal give a yelp from the inside and he climbed back into the car. “Look, I’m going back home to get my shit. You know where to find me if you change your mind.” 

He knew that he wouldn’t.

The BMW skidded out onto the Virginia highways once again, and Ronan’s head finally collided with the steering wheel. 

It was going to be a long eternity.

IT WAS 6:21 WHEN GANSEY PULLED INTO THE PARKING LOT OF NINOS, the Pig’s engine shuddering off as he turned the key, pocketing it and leaning against the wall as he waited for the host.

“Can I help you?” they asked.

“I think so,” he replied. “I have a take out order. Three pizzas? Pepperoni, cheese, and one half-sausage half-avocado,” he explained as they checked the system. “It’s under the name Gansey?”

“Yep,” they said triumphantly, “It should be ready. That’ll be $32.75.”

He reached into his pocket for his wallet, but his hands met nothing. After patting the pockets of his cargo shorts, he apologized. “It… must be in the car. I’ll go get it.”

“Take your time,” the host replied as Gansey went back to the pig, still rifling through his pockets in disbelief. 

_Krek_.

Perched on the hood of the car was Chainsaw. “How did you find me?” he asked. She croaked again, hopping down to the hood of the car and watching him intently. It was like she was waiting for something. Gansey shoved his hand between the seats, under the pile of receipts on the floor, but no wallet was found.

And then there came a scream.

Chainsaw began to caw incessantly. He looked up, and nothing but void met his eyes as a jet black covered the walls, the host stand, and the host. It was starting from where he’d been standing not moments ago.

Something tugged at his gut. He couldn’t shake the feeling that this was his fault. 

Gansey slammed the door shut, holding his head in his hands as his breathing grew heavy and panicked, and he wouldn’t, couldn’t move.

Something was wrong.

The black void crawled its way into and over the building, and all that was there was a Nino’s shaped void.

Something was wrong.

Somehow, it was his fault.

The raven took flight, soaring down the only path out of the decaying parking lot. _Follow_ , it seemed her croaks were saying, _follow_. He broke free from his panic and he couldn’t control himself as he forced the ignition on, throwing the car into drive as he tried to get away, to leave behind whatever he’d somehow brought. He followed the trail of feathers as he tried to escape.

Everything was coming to an end. 


	23. Act Four, Scene Five

### ACT FOUR, SCENE FIVE

HE WAS A FLURRY OF MOVEMENT from the moment the BMW hit the gravel of the driveway, running to the house and shouting for Opal to book it to the nearest barn. Ronan didn’t know how much time there was, but he knew that there wasn’t much, and so it was a relief when he unlocked the hatch in the foyer on the first try and found a bucket sitting on the porch. Pouring the thermos’s contents in was a risky business, and he burnt the heavy rubber gloves away in hellfire as an added precaution.

The bucket was in place, the rope in Opal’s hands. Ronan paced about the barn, filled with the tractors he’d decided should be there and the knicknacks and treasures he’d accumulated over the years - car parts from Adam and barn mice and impossible orbs of light from Satan knows where.

He didn’t want to give any of these earthly delights up.

It all had to work.

A heavy bang hit his ears, the sound of a car door getting kicked in. They’d pay for that. He grimaced at the thought as he took his place amongst the treasures, a king upon a throne of all he was and all he had.

“Ronan, you fucking Heaven-Spawn!” Prokopenko bellowed outside. “Get your ass out here!” More crashing came with him. 

“It’ll be better for you if you do,” agreed a second voice - Whelk. So he’d come along, too. “Well… Marginally so, perhaps. More accurate to say ‘easier for us’.”

“You come in here, douchebags!” Ronan roared back. “What are you; fucking scared?!”

The crunch of the gravel grew more intentional as the Demons tromped their way into the barn, stopping in the door frame. “You’ve done it now,” chided Whelk. “As soon as the other Demons know… Well, you're as good as discorporated.” 

“Actually,” he muttered. “I think I’ll take a rain check on that.”

There came a laughing like bells as Opal pulled the rope, and the bucket landed squarely on Whelk as Prokopenko startled away. His screaming wasn’t demonic - it was earthly and human; the screams of one who knew he was dying for good, melting away with him as the Holy Water dissolved Whelk and his essence into nothingness.

The silence in the air was tangible as the bubbling ceased and Ronan stood to his feet.

“You’re dead,” Prokopenko whispered, barely any voice. And then, he began screaming. “Forget discorporating! You’re a fucking dead man walking, Ronan!” He darted around the puddle, and Ronan dashed out of the door at the other end of the barn.

He wove through the property, searching for a way to escape, to trap Proko. There were millenia of junk around the property; there had to be something he could use. He fell behind the shadow of a barn, breathing slowing to a near halt as he heard the other Demon’s footsteps fall farther away.

And then, Ronan’s phone rang.

He hissed in anger as he began to run again, fumbling it out of his pocket. He picked up just as Adam had begun leaving a voicemail.

“It’s me,” Adam hissed. “For the love of all things holy, pick up your fucking phone, Lynch. I know how to find the Antichrist.”

“Give me a minute,” Ronan cut in, an idea forming in the back of his mind. “I have guests over.” 

He punched in the numbers, yelling “Get the phone, Short Stuff!” as he hit call. And with a flash, he was gone, a stewing Prokopenko following suit into the phone signal.

Physics never apply to Unearthly creatures, and they never had until these creatures decided they should. And so when Ronan decided to zip through the phone signals, it was barely any effort for him to launch himself into the subatomic, flying through space with a screaming, swearing Demon launching after him. 

He fell on the floor in the kitchen, Opal standing there with receiver in hand. “Hang that up! He cried, and she slammed it back into place. 

He was glad he’d kept the landline. 

It was 6:21, and Prokopenko’s voice wailed from the answering machine as Ronan ran out to the BMW with Opal, cackling as the adrenaline coursed through him.

IT WAS 6:21 when Blue’s elbow hit the box, tipping prophecies all over the floor. She swore under her breath as she fell to her knees. Henry and Noah both joined her, grabbing at cards to shove them back in the box. 

“You don’t have to worry about numbers,” she told Henry, who was staring at the text on a card. “We’ll get to them eventually.”

He shook his head, hand shaking as he handed the card to her. “Blue…” he said, giving up the usual nicknames. “I think that this is you.”

Between her fingers was a card with two prophecies on it, written in her own mother’s neat handwriting. 

_Prophecy 378_

_He shall walk in to the tavern serving food of Rome_

_After speaking to Blue, he misplaces his tome_

_The clocks will have started, but when Page and True Love meet_

_The Heart of the Apocalypse begins to beat_

_Prophecy 379_

_When one rides in fire, and two as one in the sky_

_The End of Days is hours ‘til nigh_

_After the Page’s kiss kills her Lover, True_

_So too she shall be there, the Lady Blue_

Her silence must have confirmed her thoughts. “It is you. Isn’t it?” She nodded.

“I’ve… Read these before,” she admitted, hands falling to her sighed. “The first one already came true, I think. And the second one… Well, I mean, read it. Too scary to tell. Telling people ‘The world will end unless I kill my true love’ isn’t something that really goes well.”

“Is that why you decided to hang out with us?” He wasn’t accusatory, but inquisitive.

“That’s how I knew who Gansey was,” Blue explained. “And I know that one means I would have stayed around. I didn’t want to do anything to make these come true. I stayed because I wanted to, and I thought that if I wanted it bad enough, I could keep the Prophecy away. I know I can’t. But I wanted to.” It was all let loose now, like a waterfall.

“And it felt right, in that way that’s so perfect that it makes you sad.” Her eyes caught Noah’s and Henry’s yet again. “It’s too perfect. I hate it. I know what I want, but it all just goes with these stupid prophecies. They always feel like they’re in the way! I just wanted the things I want. Just for a change. But the exact things I want are going to make me kill someone against my will, and-” Blue paused.

“And I don’t want Gansey to die.”

It was a strange feeling as Henry let her words seep in.

It’s a terrible and foreign thing when we know for a fact that the bad will come inevitably, knowing that all other bad things have been things you could fix. Yet as the new reality came into focus, there came the realization that the world was set in stone before you had a say. 

His best friend was going to die.

There came the dreadful feeling of sitting beside certain loss.

Blue shared in his pain. It didn’t take any psychic ability to realize that - If Henry was sitting beside loss, then so was she. He nodded slowly, and he took the card from her, hand resting with hers for a moment. Noah’s hand joined her other one, and they sat like that as the gravity weighed in, seeped in, until Henry found the words with which to speak.

He had always said, _Be afraid and happy._

How hard it was to take his own advice. He took a deep breath as he tried to.

“You said they aren’t always literal, so don’t get so hung up on it. And if you have to be hung up on it…” he smiled. “Then try to be optimistic. We came here to figure things out, so that’s what we’ll do.” 

And then Noah leapt to his feet. “Where’s the card from earlier? The one about Demons and Angels.” His eyes were wild, a level of urgency to them that Blue hadn’t seen before. He swore under his breath as he sifted through the cards, and he gave a slight cry as he found it, thrusting it into the pair’s hands.

_Prophecy 403_

_The victim of his power returns from nothing_

_When Demons and Angels seek settle the score_

_Page Lover and Knight, Ghost and Prophet as two_

_Seek out the Catalyst of the Holy War_

_Where a human shalt by Glyndwr’s Hand_

_Hell’s Prince must be slain where love still stands_

“This is the right prophecy. This has to be it,” he insisted. Blue read it over, again and again and again. It fell into place as she read it.

“How could you tell so fast?” she asked.

A grim yet confident look crossed Noah’s face. “Because I’ve been dead for seven years. Gansey must have brought me back. It had to have been him,” he said. “I’m the Ghost.”

ADAM HAD TO WORK THIS ALL OUT. He couldn’t just let humanity suffer and die, couldn’t just stand idly and do nothing. There was no way he could watch the world burn into a battleground for heaven and hell. 

And he couldn’t just let Ronan leave.

All of the projects left the garage first - the Porsche and the GTO driven off the lifts and parked outside the heavy bay doors. The bay doors pulled shut and locked tight, keeping out any and all prying eyes. With a snap, all the oil and dirt was gone, and with another, the circles appeared. 

The contractors who’d built Parrish Autobody & Repair had been baffled when they’d been stopped from pouring the concrete floor. Of all the things that a customer had wanted to do themselves, it was up there with the weird, if not the weirdest. But Adam had turned them away for the weekend and, when they’d come back, the concrete of the garage was poured and perfectly level and smoothed, and so they’d carried on with their work. If they’d looked through the bay windows now, they’d be horrified and amazed to find it cracked. Perfectly circular fissures of glowing light, precise right angles, and seven candles suddenly circled around it. A massive sigil sprawling across the workshop floor.

It had been ages since Adam had used it, or even the likes of it. After all, he was usually reached out to more than he’d reached out. He straightened his coveralls, folded his hands, and prayed.

“Hey… It’s me... the Principality Adam, that is… Please,” he muttered under his breath, shifting uncomfortably as he said his title. “I don’t care if I have to take this all the way to the top. It’s really important.”

The workshop was bathed in light, and Adam had to shield his eyes as a pure white tree sprouted itself from the concrete floor. And then the branches morphed, twisting until they became humanoid in shape, feet still rooted into the ground.

“God?” Adam asked

 _This is the Metatron_ , _Adam,_ came a voice - more of a thought, really - from the figure. _To speak with me is to speak with God_ . _I am the voice of the Almighty_.

A slight frown crossed the Angel’s face. “I mean, I guess… Feels more like talking to a PR Rep or a spokesperson, though,” he reasoned. “I appreciate it, but I really need to speak _to God_ to God.”

 _And so you shall. What is said to me is said to the Almighty_.

He didn’t like the sound of that, not after living amongst humans for millennia.

_Well? What is it, Adam?_

Adam gulped a bit. “Well… It’s the Antichrist. I think I found him. Just a search in the phonebook, and we could be at his doorstep.”

 _Good work,_ the thoughts sighed.

“So we can just put an end to the whole war. Take… Take the Antichrist out of the picture, and it’s all right again.”

 _Your work is commendable, but that’s not the point of it._ Adam’s thoughts raced alongside with the ones being projected to him. _This is a war that was always meant to be won, not avoided. It begins tonight, with his dreams becoming so dark that they consume what falls around it. A graceful start to a war to be won with our Grace._

“Graceful,” Adam lied in agreement. This wasn’t working in his favor at all.

 _You could come back now,_ the Metatron mused. _Get a head start with us. Join the ranks_.

“I will,” he lied again, looking around the shop. “Just… Let me get my affairs in order.”

_Take your time, but not too long. We’ll leave this gateway open._

It was a lost cause, wasn’t it?

Adam kicked at his toolbox as the humanoid faded back into tree and back into nothing again, only a perfect circle left in its stead.

Maybe it was time he made change not through miracles, but by his own hands.

He dialed Ronan’s number before he was fully aware of what he was doing, cursing when it went to voicemail. He picked up when Ronan called; why couldn’t the Demon do the same? “It’s me,” he hissed into the receiver. “For the love of all things holy, pick up your fucking phone, Lynch. I know how to find the Antichrist.”

“Give me a minute,” Ronan’s voice cut in. “I have guests over.” 

The line dropped dead, and it was in that moment that Adam finally fell.

A solid clock to the head sent him crashing towards the floor and into the sigil, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw nothing but wings and horns and a glare so fiery that for a moment, he thought he’d been cast into hell itself.

“You’re not gonna fuck around with any Demon ever again, you piece of shit,” spat the Demon Robert, throwing in a kick for good measure. Ichor coated the lug wrench in his hand, and hellfire sparked to life in his other.

Thankfully, the sigil took care of Adam before the fire did.

“You've gotta be fucking kidding me,” groaned Adam, and he was gone.

* * *

END OF ACT FOUR


	24. Act Five, Scene One

### ACT FIVE, SCENE ONE

THERE WASN’T A SINGLE THOUGHT that wasn’t clouded out of Ronan’s head as he slammed open the door of Parrish Autobody and Repair. The silhouette of the demon and the Hellfire that lit the room before he blanked out, launching himself at Robert and roaring in fury.

“Don’t fucking touch him, you God- Sata- You fucking someone-damned son of a bitch!” he growled, Robert’s collar nearly tearing as he yanked him up by it. In a blind rage, he wished that he’d brought the thermos with him, and before he could realize that he had not, in fact, brought it, he had willed it into his hands. Without a second thought, he stepped far back as he tossed the contents onto Robert, listening to him writhe and scream in pain.

His breath slowed as the gravity of the situation caught up with him - the puddle of goo on the ground, the missing auto lifts - something was very wrong. “Parrish?!” he screamed as he ran about the garage. “Parrish!” 

_ Maybe he’s in the house _ , he thought to himself, though he knew better. The Hellfire had said it all.

Ronan swore as he tripped over cracks in the asphalt, running up the driveway and kicking in Adam’s front door. “Adam!” he begged. “Please be in here!”

There wasn’t a sound, not a single movement as he searched for him around the entire house.

Ronan fell to his knees, everything in him that was screaming to cause a scene silenced by his mourning. He wiped his eyes, numbly walking back outside, taking a pile of the Angel’s binders and manuals as he did. 

Something to remember him by.

“Adam?” Opal asked as he dropped the pile in the front seat.

Ronan let out a sigh, heavy with regret and wistfulness. “Adam’s gone.”

DRIVE, Gansey kept telling himself, racing down the Virginia highway with his heart thudding away in his throat. He’d looked through the rearview mirror once and hadn't dared to look back again, for he knew only a black void awaited his gaze where the asphalt once was. A strip of nothingness following him like the train of a macabre king’s cloak.

Drive.

His thoughts no longer felt like his own, darkness oozing from his brain and coating everything around him; the steering wheel was no more, yet he still kept his hands on it, searching for an anchor to reality that was no more. Strange ideas rattled around his mind - visions of a black sphere that he knew had once been the Earth. An army - no, two - wrapped around the equator, light clashing into darkness and back again. It was what was supposed to come.

_ No, no it isn’t _ . That wasn’t one of his thoughts at all. Where had it come from?

Drive.

He could barely see anymore, skidding to a stop amongst a grove of trees. The thoughts - the voices that were both his and not at the same time - were louder than ever, to the point where everything was gone. 

From the grove came another voice.

It wasn’t whatever it was that had plagued his mind - it was a whisper; gentle and delicate and barely audible over the chaos of it all.  _ Rest _ , they said,  _ Rest, Son of the Adversary, Vessel of Unmaking. You have done well. Remember what we have told you - You will live _ .

He followed it, clinging to those threads as though they were a lifeline until he fell to his knees, grass and dirt welcoming him.

EVERYTHING AROUND ADAM WAS BLINDINGLY WHITE. “There you are!” Chirped a voice behind him.

Adam turned around a bit too quickly, expecting to lose his balance but still finding himself a little too perfectly upright. His clothes felt wrong, and when he looked down, he realized that the grimy coveralls and the Coca Cola tee shirt he’d put on had been switched for a white set and a blank white tee shirt. It looked like a hazmat suit. And he’d thought his regular grey ones had stained easily…

A row of Angels greeted his line of sight when he looked back, Matthew smiled as he handed them uniforms, the troops marching their way off to change. He handed one to Adam. “I was worried you weren’t coming. What business did you have?” He wondered.

“It was a whole two minutes,” Adam muttered, taking the uniform in disdain. “And I didn’t even finish…”

“Then... why are you back?” He asked. After a glance-over, he looked to Adam in dumbfound shock, “And… where’s your body...?”

“It was… inconveniently discorporated.” His ears went pink as he said it.

He could see the Angel fighting back a grin. “You lost it?”

“It’s not funny.”

“No, I guess it’s not… Well, it’ll be ok, I guess we won’t be using them again!” Matthew looked down the clipboard. “But you have the…. Flaming sword, it says here?”

“Well…” Adam drawled.

A heavy silence followed, and the almost-smile disappeared.

“Adam. Please tell me you have it. They’re going to kill you!” Matthew lamented. “Or inconveniently discorporate you! Again!”

“Look, forget about that for now,” Adam finally snapped, waving the thought aside and causing Matthew to fall silent. “Doesn’t matter. I need to get back down there. Sooner rather than later.”

“How are you going to do that?” he whispered. “They need you here now - They aren’t going to let you if you ask!”

“Matthew, they have to let me,” Adam pleaded, palms growing hot. He glanced around the space for anything that would lend weight to his reasoning - anything that would cut through Matthew’s worry. Instead, he found a stunning collection of spheres along the wall behind him - the Multiverse. And Adam found himself walking towards it. “Or… What if I go back myself?”

“You can’t do that,” Matthew stammered. “What are you going to do? Possess someone? You’ll get in so much trouble - and Angels can’t do that!”

“Demons can,” said Adam, nonchalantly. “I don’t see a difference.” The small blue-green dot was Earth - he brought it up to a bigger size, desperately searching. Here was America - how close to Henrietta could he get?

“You’re as good as dead,” Matthew cried. “Why do you need to go back so badly?”

“It’s for Reginum.”

The Angel fell silent, eyes suddenly knowing. Matthew remembered him - they all did, but only Matthew would fall to the trump card Adam hadn't wanted to use.

His name still carried weight. Matthew gave a solemn nod.

“What on God’s Green Earth is going on here?”

They both paused to turn and stare. There in the doorway stood Declan, arms crossed and a rare confused look crossing his face. 

“Declan!” cried Matthew, and with that, he pushed Adam into the map. As his non-corporeal being was sent to Earth, he caught their glances - Matthew’s hopeful and Declan’s knowing. 

_ Henrietta _ , Adam prayed to himself,  _ Henrietta _ . And he was gone.

“Declan, I’m so sorry,” blundered Matthew, trying to hide the light in his eyes.

“Peace, Matthew,” replied Declan, putting a hand on the other’s shoulder. He gave him a wink. “Mistakes happen. Even for Angels.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi lovelies! I forgot to put an author's note for act four; my apologies. Just wanted to thank you again for reading; my team and I worked hard on this and we greatly appreciate it!


	25. Act Five, Scene Two

### ACT FIVE, SCENE TWO

BLUE FRANTICALLY waved the match into extinguishment as she sat down at the table, Noah and Henry at either side. Across from her sat her mother, with her bright and bold cards, Persephone with her graceful lines, and Calla with a deck filled with colors and details that tricked the eye.

“You know that we can’t get that specific,” Calla huffed, handing her deck to Henry for him to shuffle.

“It’ll be better than anything we’ve come up with so far,” she pleaded. “We have to find Gansey.” She took her mom’s cards from her, turning them over in her hands. The Page of Cups had found its way to the top of the deck again, as it always did when Blue was involved in a reading. She turned the deck back over and shuffled them as Persephone handed her deck to Noah.

“I’ll tell you boys what we tell all our clients,” Maura said to Noah and Henry in the same voice Blue had heard so many times. “What this reading tells you will be completely accurate, but it won’t be exact.”

“What’s the difference?” Noah wondered.

“It means,” twittered Persephone, “That everything will happen in due time. But it won’t happen word for word. We see the outline of the future.” She hummed softly. “But that doesn’t mean we have all the details. Even if we do, it doesn’t always translate back into words. I think.”

Henry nodded sagely, handing Calla her cards as Noah handed Persephone’s back to her. “We’ll do our best to translate it,” Henry promised. “We will translate it. For Gansey.” 

His words hung in the air, and Blue put her right hand in his left, and her left hand in Noah’s right as the Psychics began to place their cards.

“Judgement,” rang out Calla’s voice as she placed the first card. “The end of days is nearly here. You will need to make decisions that will either bring new life or an end.”

“The Emperor,” said Persephone, laying her card across Calla’s. “Something seeks to control what is happening. Something old and powerful. Be aware of the plans that have been put in place.”

Maura placed her card below theirs. “The Devil, Reversed. That’s who you’re searching for now; that’s Gansey.” Blue’s expression softened, and from the corners of her eyes, she saw Henry lean forward in wistfulness and Noah bow his in worry. “It’s also what he’s lost you must focus on: Restoring Control. He’s lost it, and nothing will be right until he’s found it again.”

She placed down another. “Two of Swords. A stalemate was once reached. A decision that cannot be made yet that both sides want decided.”

“The Three of Pentacles.” Calla all but slammed down her card. “You have each other, and you have allies on your side yet. Know them when you meet them.”

“The High Priestess,” said Persephone. “... Oh dear, he’s not here yet…” With a small sigh, she told Maura, “You’d better place the next card,” as Blue and her Raven Boys stared in terror and anticipation.

With a solemn nod, Maura placed another card. “The Hierophant. Go back to what you’ve known and worked with for so long. Tried is true. It will show you the way…"

"There you are, Blue,” said Calla, and Blue couldn’t help but let out a laugh as the Page of Cups was placed next. “Have faith in knowing that there’s still hope, still potential for things to go the direction they should.”

“The Nine of Swords.” Calla looked around the table. “You’re all afraid of what’s to come. I would be too,” she said, amused. “But you have to rise above it. Take a deep breath. It will work out somehow.”

“And… the last card?” asked Blue, her breath baited.

Gingerly, Persephone pulled a card from the deck, placing it down with a level of grace only she could attain.

“The World,” she whispered. “Completion.”

It was a weighty word to throw around, and it hung about the air with the smoke of the candles and the pressing of their fates.

And then, Noah began to wheeze, yanking his hand from Blue’s as he reached for something that wasn’t there.

“Hey, Casper- Are you okay?” Henry jumped from his seat to see what was the matter.

Blue found herself frozen in worry, breaking free as Noah fell to his knees. Had the reading talked about this? There wasn’t anything that came to mind. “Noah!” she cried, rushing to his side. “Noah!”

And then all at once, Noah stood to his feet. Blue and Henry watched dumbstruck as he pulled out the chair, taking a seat at the table again.

“Sorry,” drawled a voice that was coming from Noah but that clearly was not him. “I was looking for someone receptive and… Well, I overheard you talking about ending the apocalypse.”

“Oh, good,” chirped Persephone, ignoring the confoundment on everyone’s faces. “He who the High Priestess foretold.”

“What are you doing in my mind?” Noah asked in a voice that was shaking with fear but still his own.

“Please try not to worry,” the Psychic promised. “I think you’ll find that this being will help you with the answers you seek.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi lovelies! This chapter has a pretty hefty tarot reading in it! If anyone is curious, I thought I'd note a couple things about the reading that didn't exactly mesh well into the text.
> 
> I used a Celtic Cross spread, as it covers a lot of info and is something more traditional. The cards represent, in order: Where you are now, Challenges, Where your focus should be, Past, Strengths, Immediate future, Suggested approach, What you need to know, Hopes and fears, and Potential future.
> 
> I used the High Priestess to represent Adam/the Immediate Future because she shows up immediately at the end of the reading. The High Priestess also represents an inner voice, which I thought was a neat juxtaposition with him and Noah sharing a form.
> 
> I also went off the meanings from my Golden Thread deck, as that's my trusty tarot companion :)


	26. Act Five, Scene Three

### ACT FIVE, SCENE THREE

THE CALLER ID IN THE BMW began to blink. Ronan had always enjoyed the shark-like sleekness that came with modern cars, but never once had he wanted to receive a call in his car, so they’d never once come through.

Opal crawled up on the armrest to see. “Who?” she asked.

“I don’t fucking know. Sit back down,” he said, staring at the number. It was a Henrietta area code; one he didn’t recognize. 

He couldn’t shake the need to pick it up, and he pressed talk just as it was about to stop ringing.

“Who the fuck is this?” he grumbled.

“Ronan?”

The Demon skidded to a stop, Opal giving a slight yelp in the back seat. “I told you to sit back down,” he called back to her, only half paying attention. There was no way it could be who he thought it was. “Adam?”

“Oh, thank goodness.” He heard the angel sigh on the other end of the line. It was him; it really was him.

Something pulled at Ronan’s chest; he couldn’t see straight. “It’s really you,” he breathed. “Fucking shit, Adam, I thought you were… I saw him.”

“I’m okay,” Adam replied quickly. “A bit... less than corporeal, but it’s fine. I’ve found a host-”

“I’m Noah,” added a second voice.

“- And I’ve found us help. His friends; they know where he is.”

“... the Antichrist?” The word felt weightier with the added certainty.

“Look, Ronan, I know I screwed this all up, but I think we can fix it. Together. We have to,” pleaded the Angel. “Please.”

The Demon’s grip tightened on the steering wheel. Taking a deep breath, he asked, “Where am I meeting you, Angel?”

He could feel Adam’s smile, even from miles away. “I’ll get someone to text you directions.”

IN HINDSIGHT, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN A MIRACLE if the Mustang still worked.

It was covered in tree branches, and the inside was littered with dust. Noah didn’t even want to think about the coffee he’d had in the cupholder before he was killed, and the cringe in his thoughts told him that Adam would rather have not known.

The batteries in the key didn’t work, and so he tossed them to Henry, Blue shoving branches out of the way for him to unlock the door and get in. They all waited with baited breath as he turned the key. Nothing happened.

“I don’t know what I expected,” said Noah.

“I could fix it,” Adam borrowed him to say, “But not fast enough.”

“What about a miracle?”

He shook his head. “It’d take a bunch. They’d catch on.”

Blue gave a groan. “There has to be something! We have to get there - We’re supposed to!” It was too much to handle, and she gave the Mustang a hearty kick in her frustration.

_ Click _ .

They all looked around, wondering where the sound came from. Noah walked around to the trunk - It was open. He creaked it open, leaves falling off the top. Inside was an outdated bookbag, a set of jumper cables, and something else.

“Street-Rift!” he gasped softly, picking up the longboard, and Adam was softened by the excitement he could feel coming from Noah as he inspected it. It was an old skateboard, certainly, but sturdy, and the bottom of the deck was covered in stickers from Vans to Marvel to some slightly-ironic zombies. 

“Well, at least we can cruise towards the apocalypse at five miles an hour,” said Henry, half lamenting and half joking.

“I bet I can hit ten,” protested Noah, but he sighed. “You’re still right, though. I don’t think it helps…”

“Actually,” cut in Adam, ideas starting to spin about both his and Noah’s heads, “I think that’s one miracle I can pull off.”

RONAN WAS DRIVING FAST BEFORE THE BMW BEGAN TO BE UNMADE. It had been easy to follow the directions, between what Blue had barked over the phone and the trail of void that sprawled down the road. And then it crawled it’s way onto the spoiler. The tar-black that was slowly oozing across the hood of the car had only changed it from a race to get to Adam and the Antichrist into a race against the clock. It crept farther and farther down the car, like he’d driven into a sheet of molasses that was being gusted by the car’s sheer velocity. Slower speeds couldn’t stop it, and so the only way to get rid of it was to not - it was to get to the woods and out of the car before there wasn’t a car anymore.

The stakes had changed. He pushed the gas pedal down farther. He was pushing a hundred. Then a hundred and twenty. The little red needle shook as he kept pushing it. “Faster,” he kept growling at it. “Faster, faster.” Opal squealed from the back seat. “Seatbelt. Now,” he barked at her, and she finally clicked it into place.

“Go faster!” She insisted. “Faster!”

“I am,” he said, watching the needle. It was jittering as though the earth was shaking - as if it were having its own personal earthquake. A perfect 4.1. He gave it a cold glare, and it froze itself in place at 130. He had to keep going. He had to.

There was a crashing from the hood of the car, and Ronan didn’t dare to turn around, didn’t dare check the rearview mirror because the steady falling of the needle below 99 told him exactly what had happened. The front of the BMW was gone. The inner workings, without their cage to keep them in place, were gone.

It was over.

It couldn’t be over. He refused to believe it.

Ronan had refused to believe hundreds of thousands of times. It had begun at the Beginning - refusing to believe his best works were perfect, that there was no way to make it better. Refusing to believe that any of the Heavenly stock were perfect. When he had started to ask questions, he was cast out for his lack of belief, lack of faith. He refused to believe that he’d fallen, at first, then he refused to believe that forgiveness would ever come.

And yet he hadn’t realized that in his disbelief, he’d been creating belief of his own. Every self-sufficient farm creature and every time a human had wandered right past the Barns had simply been because he had dreamt it into existence, had believed that was how it was supposed to be. Even the BMW, for all he put it through, had stayed sleek and unscathed through drag races and collisions.

In fact, with all the BMW had gone through, Ronan couldn’t believe it  _ wouldn’t _ run. Weren’t there cars that didn’t run on gasoline? He’d heard of green cars before from Adam - he didn’t understand them the way he did a fuel exhaust system, but Adam’s interest in how they ran with no exhaust wasn’t lost on him. And how could a car make exhaust with no engine.

The BMW would just have to run without one.

He revved the BMW back to life, a cold baring of teeth forming a grin as he drove on.


	27. Act Five, Scene Four

### ACT FIVE, SCENE FOUR

WAR HAD BEEN THE FIRST TO ARRIVE to the decaying parking lot, speeding in on a motorbike and skidding to a halt in front of where the sidewalk in front of Nino’s had once been. She looked as if she were an action movie villain; one who had crawled her way out of an apocalypse that had yet to happen. The very one that she’d help to bring about. The sword strapped to her back ruined the effect - perfect fall of her hair, the designer combat boots, the jacket that was missing nothing but bullet holes and scorches. They would come, she knew, and she’d wear them with pride, for once the fighting began in blame over the end of the world, she would lie in revel of it.

The next to arrive was Famine, parking with precision as though he could see the lines that were once there. There came a sour scent as he opened the door, the suggestion of an empty storehouse and rotten fruit, and he walked to War with a crash into her lips. They were a box set with the two that were still left to arrive, but while she didn’t always follow him, he always came soon after her. The starvation that would come inevitably with the end of the world would only be expedited with her puppets playing the blame game.

“Long time no see,” he told her, though that was a lie, for while they were apart in person, they were often together in spirit.

“It’s been ages,” she laughed, a fire in her eyes that grew brighter only with the sound of more and more devastation rolling in.

Three cars drove in next - or was it really one? The driver rolled down the windows, and there sat three men - Pestilence, Plague, and Profanation, known all as one under one name - Pollution. The inside of the car smelled sickly, like a hospital, and trash that had once been Unmade suddenly became caught under the tires. The men all smiled at War and Famine, for often War was their excuse and Famine both their means and their side effect. War was a ground for pollution of the mind, the body, and the earth. Famine was often caused by pollution, and there were and always would be countless who would rather see the world razed than to give.

“Three out of all,” they noted all at once. “But where is the fourth?”

They came out of the Void itself, walking through as if there was a door. There had once been one, so perhaps they came through the suggestion of it - the idea of what once was. After all, that was what Death had come to represent.

“I’ve never gone away,” they said matter-of-factly, what little light remained illuminating a bone white skull under their cloak.

“Then it’s true, isn’t it,” said Famine. “We’ve known it was coming, known this was it, but it feels much more real in the moment.”

“So is everything, dearest,” quipped War. “Reality is what is faced in the moments after fate is created. Humans think they’re so pitiable, faced with the realities they’ve cornered themselves into.” Her hair caught in the wind, smatterings of blood suddenly caught in the light. “And boy, did they create a hellscape for us to work with.”

“We can’t do anything without Him,” reminded the Triplets.

And then, from behind them, there came the cacophony of something roaring to life.

Up out of the Void oozed an orchestra of jet-black bones, shaking and morphing together as if held in place by an invisible force. They almost certainly were. As the motorcycle came into form Death swung themself over it, revving the machine as their own skull clattered in a symphony of unholy laughter.

“Then,” they said, “Why have we stayed so long here, where he is not?” They revved the bike’s engine, and the other Horsemen fell silent.

“Our final ride has arrived. The Heir awaits.”

* * *

END OF ACT FIVE


	28. Update

Hello! Yessie here! Unfortunately, due to some electricity issues on my end, the final update will be a little late. We'll have it out in a couple days - We just felt that because our revision schedule was thrown off, it'd be better to not rush so we can give you the best possible ending. Thank you for your patience, and I hope you've been enjoying!


	29. Act Six, Scene One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Sorry for the slight delay! Without further adieu, here is the final act of Uncanny Omens

### ACT SIX, SCENE ONE

IT TRULY FELT AS THOUGH EVERYTHING HAD BEEN IMMACULATELY PLANNED as the BMW - what was left of it, anyway - peeled out in front of the forest. Void dripped from the tree branches, and there was a perfect arcway left to enter the grove from. Inside, they ushered, inside. Adam’s relief and Noah’s confusion clouded together as Ronan slammed the Unmade vehicle closed and as Opal scrambled out from the other side.

“Adam,” the demon, regarded, scowl evident but something soft almost tangible in his eyes. It filled Adam with relief. He wanted to run over, to make things right. He needed to. But time was still ticking, and Ronan cut the moment short with, “You didn’t tell me the pygmy tyrant was going to be here, too.”

Blue looked between them. “You hit me with your car!” she shouted, whipping around to face Adam. He could feel Noah flinch in surprise. “And that means you were his boyfriend!”

Adam fought to keep Noah from giving a surprised gasp, and he felt his ears go pink. “We are… It was an accident,” he muttered.

“If you’re done playing detective,” Ronan huffed, looking away with a flushed face and a glare like ice, “You said the Antichrist was here. Where is he?”

 _Krek_.

A bird flew over - a large raven, circling in the air above them all. She made several laps before landing on Blue’s head. Blue stood perfectly still so as to not scare her off, and once she was satisfied, she began to screech incessantly. 

“That’s… That’s Chainsaw,” Henry realized.

“Who’s Chainsaw?” Asked Adam.

Noah cut him off. “I don’t think we have time for that. She has to be here with Gansey.”

The bird gave an affirmative croak before hopping towards the grove. She screeched again, and Blue roared, “Come on! If it wasn’t obvious from the everything-else, he’s in there!”

Walking through the archway was like walking through pitch black. The minute they stepped through, there was nothing in front or behind, nor above or below, and nothing in any direction. There was a cold shudder through them all. _So this is what it will be_ , thought Adam. _This is what the end will look like_.

It cleared away with the final step, and though the world had color and form once again, the chilling feeling was still there. The trees that surrounded the grove were groaning, crying, wailing. _Salvum_ , they mourned, _salvum fac regis_. It was easy to see from what.

In the center of it all sat a young man, fallen to his knees. At least, he was a young man on the outside, for there was hardly anything left that seemed to be who he once was. A pool of Unmaking oozed out around him, the ground gone as if scribbled over by a fervent child with a black crayon.

What was most terrifying of all were his eyes, simultaneously colored in Void and glowing, glowing. Radiant in power.

If Adam didn’t already know the antichrist existed, he’d have put it together quickly from this sight.

Blue looked ready to rush to his side until Henry started to, and Ronan grabbed both their arms to hold them back. “No you don’t.” He kept his eyes trained on the Antichrist. “He’s dangerous now. Not what you might’ve known before.”

“You don’t understand,” protested Henry. “We have to get over to him. He needs us. Or at the very least, Blue needs to get to ki-”

“No, he’s right,” Adam sighed. He could feel the concern rising in Noah. “He has to be stopped.”

The concern in Noah ebbed into fear. “And by stopped, you mean…?”

It wasn’t something Adam particularly wanted. He loved Humanity, the people who worked so hard in spite of the constant interference. But could Humanity go on with an interference this big? They couldn’t. That was the point of the apocalypse. The Unmaking. The Unmaker. Gansey.

“You can’t kill him!” shouted Noah. “None o-”

“We don’t have much of a fucking choice!” Ronan nodded his head to the ever-growing pool of void. “He wasn’t made to stop doing this! He can’t!” But the look in his eyes was one that was wishing for another choice. The same look in his eyes from when he had fallen years ago.

He could feel Noah trying to convince him otherwise, and Adam wanted to let him so badly. The pleas of you can’t be the ones that kill him, made his soul clench.

His mourning eyes met Ronan’s in silent, regretful agreement.

“None of you are going to kill him!”

They all turned to stare at Blue as she tore her arm away from Ronan, stumbling away. Her eyes were too sad and her heart too heavy for that roar to have come from her.

“I’m going to.”

SHE WASN’T PREPARED FOR HOW REAL IT WOULD SUDDENLY BE. Years upon years of readings and prophecies can do that to you, for when you hear _If you were to kiss your true love, they will die_ at least twice a month with the certainty that it will happen, the words lose their power. Or rather, in Blue's case, they lost their distance, for fate was a power she knew was never truly gone. It was like always worrying about whether or not you have your keys, and on the one day you forget to ask yourself, you forget.

And now she was here, numb and raw and in complete control. “I’m going to kill him,” she said again. “I’m supposed to, and I don’t think anyone else even can. It has to be me.”

Noah seemed to be fighting himself to hold Adam back, worry in his eyes no matter who was in control, and Ronan kicked at the ground with a level of concern that she could already tell was foreign on his face, even if from meeting him twice for real and countless times in passing.

Only Henry gave her a real nod in agreement, reluctant but understanding. “Gansey’s always been looking for the unknown,” he said, slowly as if translating his thoughts into words. “He’s obsessed over it for ages. We’ve joked about it taking him over. But if he is the unknown, we can’t let that happen. I can’t see that happen.”

She nodded back slowly. “I’ll do it. It was always meant to be done.”

It was a sickening feeling as she numbly walked towards what Gansey once was, and she could feel the energy flickering around them. There came glimpses of visions, the ones she could never see, and all at once she was hair widths away from him. His face was blank as a slate, yet in it she felt fear, and worry, like outside the cage of a hurt beast. And yet she felt hope in him as well, fluttery and weak.

It hurt to think about, realizing how what was left of his Self called out for it, as if saying _It’ll be okay, it’ll be ok. I’m ready. Blue, kiss me._

She breathed in a shaky breath. “Let it be to kill what you’ve become.”

She’d been imagining what it would be like since she learned what a kiss was. In some scenarios, she’d played out a collision; a final crash of love as the world was burning. In others, it was quick, reluctance but acceptance all at once. A fate she’d come to look past.

It was softer than anything she’d imagined, with more feeling in a simple press against lips than she could have imagined. The feelings were what was worst of all.

She didn’t want Gansey to die. None of them did.

He crumpled to the ground, Unmaking blowing away from him like ashes until only he remained. The king had fallen. There were no sighs of relief, no tears. Only forelornment as she stumbled her way back and into the arms of Henry and Noah-Adam. Opal clung to her leg and Ronan said, “What’s done is done.”

And it was.

“Actually,” came a voice, “There’s more coming. I think.”

Everyone jolted in shock as they turned around to see Gansey, yellow polo and all, standing like a king before them.

There was barely time to process as she raced Henry into Gansey’s arms, crashing into his chest and reveling in the warmth of embrace that came after.

“I thought I killed you,” Blue mumbled into his shoulder.

“You did,” he replied. “The part of me that shouldn’t have been. But I think the rest of me wasn’t meant to stay dead.”

She heard Henry give him a hearty clap on the back. “Welcome back to the living, Gansey.” It was a warm sound, hearing Henry say it, and everything felt right again because Gansey was alive, alive, alive.

“It’s good to be back,” he said cheerily as he let them go. “Now.” He looked over to where the others stood. “Let’s fix some physical forms and get ready. There’s going to be more to come.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Latin in this scene:  
> Salvum fac Regis - Save our king


	30. Act Six, Scene Two

### ACT SIX, SCENE TWO

GANSEY WASN’T SURE HOW HE KNEW ALL THIS. He wasn’t sure how he could have been the spawn of Satan, ruiner of this earth. He didn’t understand how everything had fallen into place. But it had happened, and with the impending doom of the apocalypse literally riding towards his beck and call, he wasn’t so sure that it mattered how he knew. All that mattered was that it were stopped.

It all was a calm before the storm, with Noah and the Angel back to being themselves, both humans and the uncanny beings reveling in being united once again. But with the calm before any storm came an air of worry, and it hung above all of them darker than any storm cloud.

They couldn’t be taken in a fight. After all, a war cannot be won by one man, nor can one man rid all of hunger or completely wipe out disease nor pollution. But ideas could be talked down.

He looked to the ragtag group he stood with.

He trusted no one else to talk ideas out of existence.

There came a series of noises, the sounds of tires squealing towards them, and the very ground shook. They came crashing through the trees, and both Adam and Ronan made poise to attack. 

Gansey held up his hand. “It’s okay,” he promised them. “This one isn’t your fight.”

Reluctantly, they stood down, Adam shoving his hands in his pockets while Ronan huffed, arms crossed. “Whatever you say.” But there was a level of trust in those words.

The caravan of vehicles skidded to a halt, and there came a number between four and six people - it was hard to say. There were supposed to be four once.

“Well, if it isn’t the King and his little court,” laughed Pollution, a sickening chorus of laughter all at once. 

“We’re surprised that you kept so many around, seeing as they’ll be joining us soon,” chided Death.

Gansey stood his ground, and his friends stepped forward to meet him. “You see, that’s where I think you’re wrong. I’m in charge of this. And I don’t want it to happen,” he smiled. “It’s pretty fantastic here, and I’m not ready to see it go.”

There came a silence, then cold dark laughter as his foes stood to meet him as an oppose. They stood there, person-for-entity as perfect as perfect could be.

"You mistake where your power comes from," said Death.

"An innate evilness," chided War, brandishing her sword as a fearful gasp was drawn from man and ethereal being alike.

"That's not yours!" cried Adam. "You can't use _that_ against them!"

She laughed indignantly. "Finders keepers," she decided, setting the blade ablaze as she took Gansey's chin in her hands. "That which controls you... Has to still be in there... That drive for destruction... Where is it..."

With an indignant roll of her eyes, Blue gave a sharp kick to War’s shin. She yelled far more out of surprise than out of pain, but there must have been enough pain for her to drop it, the flames flickering as it clattered to the ground. Like lightning, Blue ran to scoop it up. She pointed it to War’s chest. 

She gave Blue a sickly smile. “How funny. I don’t think you can win. Not when I have the whole world behind me.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” hissed Blue. “Unless the whole world is actually made up of men who just want to see it burn. They think that you make them look good?” A smile crossed her face. “Anyone looks good next to a pile of dead men. All they have to do is pretend they don’t support you while they stuff their pockets and stroke their egos over it. They don’t look at those who oppose them. And I don’t think you do, either, because if you did, you’d see-” A harsh jab left War breathless. “Just how much the world wants you to vanish.”

She sputtered, blonde hair in disarray as the bombshell herself faded into void until all at once, she was gone. Blue dropped the sword to the ground. “Who’s next?”

Henry took up the sword next, his eyes trained on Famine. “I know where you come from,” he thought aloud, circling him as if contemplating. The fire in his eyes, though, told Gansey that his decision was made. “You come from fear. Fear of the unknown, of what will happen when humanity can survive. All people can think to do is take for themselves so they don’t fear for their lives. But the ones taking from the starving are the best ones off. They have nothing to fear, but everyone does. You come from fear. I think we’ll just end you at the source.”

With a slash of the blade, Famine erupted into a wash of pitch black.

All of Pollution lunged for the blade, but they were too slow - it landed in Noah’s hand as he skidded to the ground. He dusted himself off. “You don’t care, do you?” he asked, cutting right to the point. His hands gripped the hilt, a knight ready to slay a foul beast. “With every stupid accident, every careless action, you come around. When things are left to rot for ages until the world suffers for it. You pollute land, you pollute lives. You pollute minds. People don’t realize and they let that slide.” He gave the fatal blow to them - a slash that would kill the one or the three men alike. “Well no longer.”

Noah hefted the blade to Gansey, but before he could take it, Death began to laugh. “That won’t work,” they chuckled. “And that’s not a ploy to get rid of me. It’s the truth. None of us will disappear forever.” Their eyesockets glowed. “But me? I’m a constant.”

“Then leave us for now.” He pointed the blade at Death anyway - weight to his argument. “Do your work. But I don’t have any extra purpose for you. Not today or ever.”

The figure gave a slight bow before fading away. It was an intentional fade, not the painful disappearance of the other horsemen. Quietly, he slid away.

The sun began to peek out from over the treetops, and Gansey crashed into the embrace of his friends. Chainsaw squaked enthusiastically, and Adam and Opal smiled from afar. Even the corners of Ronan’s lips curled upward.

Because in that moment, they were kings.


	31. Act Six, Scene Three

### ACT SIX, SCENE THREE

THINGS HARDLY STAY ONE WAY FOR LONG. There’s always the possibility for bad to turn to good and good to bad around the corner, and all of it fueled by relativity.

Then again, some relativity is more evident than other cases.

They’d all retreated out of the grove, Void dissipating back into grass and asphalt, and talk of their celebration filled the air. There was a lot to explain. There was a lot to return, and they’d all agreed that everyone that was there, at least deserved to know. 

And then there came shadows from above and the ground began to boil. Too large a shadow to be a bird. Too much boiling for anything, as the ground did not boil for no reason.

The humans all stepped back as an Angel landed in front of the BMW’s ruins, and a demon melted his way into existence.

Ronan’s soul froze. “I left you in the answering machine,” he hissed at Proko.

“Your little friend called and I slipped out,” he said, teeth barred in a grin. “Oh, Satan… What we’re going to do to you two for ruining this…”

“Worry about that later,” sighed Declan, holding a hand up to the Demon. He turned to Adam. “Where is he?”

Dumbfound, the Angel raised a shaky arm to gesture to Gansey. His gaze pleaded Declan to leave him be. Ronan searched in the Archangel’s for any sign that he would. If he had to, he wasn’t against tackling him down - after all, he had already fallen. But when Declan’s gaze met his own, there was something in his eyes that made Ronan keep his leash on.

He’d wait.

Both creatures strode their way to Gansey, Prokopenko giving him a meaningful snark. “So you’re the real Antichrist. You don’t fucking look it.”

“Do you have a problem, gentlemen?” Gansey asked.

“I’ll say we do! You stopped the Satan-be-Damned Apocalypse!” He was practically seething behind the look in his eyes, though Ronan knew this was the Demon trying to be civil. “That’s not supposed to happen. It needs to start again. Right. Now.”

“For God’s sake,” sighed Declan. “You aren’t going to convince him that way.” He spoke like a lawyer, the way that he always had, Ronan remembered. “Gansey, I don’t want to push you too hard, but I think you understand. This is what is meant to happen. Problems get solved by this. The world would be yours on a string.”

“I don’t want the world on a string,” came the decisive reply. “The only world I want is here.”

“This is what’s meant to happen,” he reasoned. “It was written in the Great Plan. There isn’t any going around the word of God.” He paced, casting glances to the group. “I can’t think of any reason this would be a part of the Great Plan…”

Adam suddenly looked up. “You said Great Plan.”

“That I did, Adam.”

“Well, I don’t recon that’s what all this is a part of.”

Both Declan’s and Prokopenko’s brows furrowed. “What the hell do you mean?” spat the Demon.

“I’m just saying,” the Angel said nonchalantly. “God’s been planning things since the Beginning. Since before the Beginning, before any of us. Shoot, who knows how many They have. It’s uncanny, really.”

“And your point?” Declan asked. Was that hope Ronan heard in it?

“Well, God doesn’t just throw plans around like darts,” he reasoned, walking over to Gansey. "Everything happens for a reason because They planned it all. So They'd have had to plan for all this to happen." There was a slight glint in his eyes that matched the Archangel's. "This might not be the Great Plan. But if it's happening, it's got to be part of one of 'em."

"Well," Declan concluded, turning to Prokopenko. "It sounds like the Almighty will need to be consulted."

The Demon's eyes smoldered, his chest tight as he hissed out, "A consultation is definitely in order," before exploding into a puff of smoke. The smell of brimstone filled the air.

"Good fucking riddance," Ronan huffed.

And then, Declan looked to him again, something ages old still in his eyes. Ronan's stare held his ground as the Archangel swept something from the ground in a graceful, fluid motion. His steps towards the Demon were nothing if not pure intent, and he pressed it into Ronan's hand.

It was a scrap of paper, a slip from one of the books he’d taken from Adam’s house - But it couldn't have been Adam’s, for what was on it was not a blueprint or a magazine article, but a prophecy.

_Prophecy 407_

_Tried is tried and true is true_

_Be it by fires in Heaven or by Hell housing sea_

_Tried will be tried, but thine lives may still be_

_If thou chose thine faces wisely_

" _Nam postea_ ," Declan said as Ronan finished reading.

And he was gone.

PROKOPENKO HAD NOT SAID WHO, exactly, he would be consulting, but it became immediately evident as the ground began to rumble and shake, boiling hot fissures opening in the ground. Opal screeched and Chainsaw joined her, their crying incessant as they flitted about to avoid the carnage. Henry gave a shout as Blue and Gansey both crashed into him, grabbing for each other as the three of them took Noah down with them.

“What the fuck is this now?!” cried Gansey, dragging the others to their feet.

“We’ve done it now,” Ronan bemoaned, the lament uncharacteristic as true fear clouded his eyes. “That fuckwad consulted with someone alright… He consulted with _Him_.”

Adam’s jaw dropped open. “You don’t mean…”

There was a silence as the world kept shaking. “‘You don’t mean’ what?!” screamed Henry.

“The Damnest of the Dammed,” Ronan hissed back. “Satan himself.”

Gansey froze still at the words. “And if I’m the Antichrist…”

Silently, Adam nodded.

Rocking as much as the earth, Blue clamped her hands over her head, falling to her knees. “He’s angry,” she whispered. “More than angry. Even _I_ can feel it.”

“We’re over,” Ronan kept repeating. “It was great to meet you all before we all fucking die.”

The Angel ran his hands through his hair, eyes darting between the Antichrist, frozen in panic, to his Court corralled in fear beside him, to Ronan and back and forth and back again. And then, something caught his eye.

He wasn’t one to put weight behind a moral argument, not obviously at the least, but as he picked up the sword, he decided there was a time and place to throw one’s weight around, and that time was now.

“Ronan,” he said, offering the Demon his hand. “We have to stop this. You were the one who said we had to stop this.

“There’s nothing we can do!” snapped Ronan. “This isn’t some ‘kill the Antichrist’ plot - this is Satan himself!”

“There has to be something! Help me do something,” Adam hissed, eyes burning as he pleaded with Ronan, “Or all bets of being around each other after this are off - And that’s not even me being an asshole - I mean that we’re all going to fucking be dead!”

The Demon’s gaze softened, and he closed his eyes as his face faded into what Adam could only recognize as dreaming. The world melted away, leaving only Demon, Angel, and Antichrist as it gently cascaded into mist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Latin in this scene:  
> Nam Postea - For later


	32. Act Six, Scene Four

### ACT SIX, SCENE FOUR

THEY WERE IN A DESERT NOW, one that looked ever so similar to the Beginning, and Adam couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief as Gansey looked around in confusion.

“What the fresh hell is this?” He asked pleasantly.

“This,” huffed Ronan, “is your time to think.”

“Gansey,” Adam addressed him, “Your father is coming for you. To destroy you. Shoot, probably to destroy everyone.”

“I still can’t believe I’m his… you know,” muttered Gansey, kicking at the sand with his boat shoes. “What am I supposed to think about?

“I don’t know - How to stop this?” the Demon snarked.

“How am I supposed to do that?” Gansey shrugged into a wide gesture. “I’m just one person. People treat me like I’m… Special. Like a king. But I’m not - I have people there for me, even when… Even when I take it for granted,” he sighed. “I’m just human.”

“I mean… That might not be bad,” Adam interjected. “This war was started by Heaven and Hell, but Humanity is what’s stuck between it. An unbiased voice.” 

“Like it or not, you were meant to be the Antichrist. Reality will bend to you,” said Ronan as he walked his way over. “You can change it. It’ll listen to you. Even… Even if you aren’t what you were made to be.”

“Then what am I now?” Gansey asked. There was a tone that told them he’d been asking that for a long time.

“You were meant to be Hell Incarnate,” said the Demon.

“And I was kinda hoping you’d be Heaven Incarnate,” admitted Adam. “But I think you fall both in between and in neither.” smiling slightly, he put a hand on Gansey’s shoulder. “I’ll reckon you’re Human Incarnate. You live the way they do. Love the way they do. You’re Human, Gansey.”

There was a pause as Gansey thought, a light coming to his eyes.

“I know what to do,” he said finally.

Nodding deeply, Ronan put his hand on Gansey’s other shoulder. “Then do it fast,” he said. “I’m taking us back.”

WHEN GANSEY OPENED HIS EYES, his world lay in Ruins around him. The Demon and Angel at his shoulders could only watch silently as he walked towards the bubbling fissures that were boiling themselves into fearsome shapes. He took in a shaky breath, catching Blue’s eyes, then Henry’s, then Noah’s. They looked upon him with worry, but nodded in certainty as he stopped at the edge, reciting his words in his head.

From out of the fire and brimstone came a man, eyes replaced with fiery voids and skin glowing like red coals. He wore a suit, both expertly tailored and made of nothing, nothing but void.

“Well,” he said, voice smooth with fury. “This isn’t the way I’d imagined a family reunion.”

“That’s because it isn’t one,” Gansey said.

Satan stared at him for a moment, lips quirking upwards in angry bemusement. “What do you mean, ‘it isn’t’?”.

“I, for one, don’t consider you family.” With the confidence of a winning candidate, he added, “How could I have. You were never there. I’m eighteen now, and you’ve never once checked in. You’ve never had my best interests in mine, only your own. I’m not your prince of Hell, and you’re not my family.”

“Then who is?” asked Satan. “That Old-Virginia-Money and the Politician? The Campaign Manager?”

“Well, yes,” he agreed. “They’ve been there for me, too. But I meant them.” He spread his arms, gesturing to his friends. His true love, his closest friend, and his compatriot brought from another time. Even the Occult and Ethereal stock were included in the sweeping motion he made. “Because they’re the ones that have made me feel like I have a place. That have been here through what - thanks to you, probably - has been the worst night I’ve ever had.”

“You can’t mean that,” sneered the Eldritch horror.

“I do,” insisted Gansey, a level of gravitas to his voice. “I think I mean it more than I’ve ever meant anything else.” He smiled softly, looking behind him to gaze upon them all.

“Say what you mean, Gansey,” Adam prompted gently.

“Finish it,” agreed Ronan.

“Tell him the truth,” chorused Blue, chorused Henry, chorused Noah.

“My family is my parents, who raised me,” Gansey said, decisive words turning to truth, though there was little false about it to begin with. “It’s my sister, who I grew up with. It’s Henry, who was there to understand me, and Blue, who showed me what I couldn’t understand. It’s Noah, who went ride-or-die at my side. It’s Chainsaw, who led me to where I can end this. Even these… Beings,” he said with a wave, “Have shown me more than you have in my entire life. That’s what family is.” All uncertainty was gone as he decided, “You aren’t a part of that. You never were a part of it.”

And with a gust of wind, a bone-chilling scream, and a wave of void that washed everything away, the world appeared again as Gansey had said it was: His family, standing in a circle of trees, rejoicing as the world fell back into right again.


	33. Act Six, Scene Five

### ACT SIX, SCENE FIVE

IT STANDS THAT THE END OF THE WORLD is not the easiest thing to build a life on. The end of the world is just that - an ending, and so Blue had lived her whole life with the knowing that once she found true love, whatever came next would be difficult to say the least. If the world did end, the weight of it would fall upon her no matter who the blame truly fell on. There was no love in her end of the world, for she’d been told they’d be dead by prophecy after prophecy.

It wasn't until the road faded back into safe to drive on. It wasn't until the Demon's car returned and they'd all piled into Gansey's in agreement to meet again. It wasn’t until Noah’s soft snores and Henry’s silent staring out the window fading into background static that Gansey’s hand slid into hers, and her eyes darted his. He kept staring at the road as they drove back to Henrietta, but when her gaze finally caught his, it felt as though something that was once in him had died away and only he remained. He looked the way he did when she first met him.

He looked like himself.

“Remember when I called you?” he asked. “When we talked about the ducks?”

“How could I forget? It was last night. I guess two nights ago,” she corrected herself as the beginnings of daybreak began to erupt into sunrise. The rays themselves felt almost warm after the long night.

“I meant what I said then,” Gansey told her. “When I said I could sleep after talking to you. And when I thanked you.”

She replied with a soft, “I know you did.” After a moment, she looked back to their hands, adding, “This is strange, isn’t it?”

“Which part of it?”

Lost in thought, she brushed her thumb over his hand. “I think all of it. I didn’t think things would feel like this. Not when the world was supposed to end.”

“How does it feel…?” He asked, turning to look at her with searching eyes.

“Keep looking at the road!” She hissed, but there was a certain level of malice missing from it. “It feels like... potential.”

He smiled softly as she said it.

“I didn’t think I’d really have a chance to love,” Blue admitted. “Or… Well, I would, but it wouldn’t be there for long enough to live with. It was something that I wanted but could never have.”

"And what do you want to do, if you can have it...?"

"I'd want to explore it."

He gave a soft sigh as he laced their fingers, a look of emotions she couldn't quite name across his face. Admiration. Sadness. Hope. “I think I’d give anything to start exploring life with you,” Gansey breathed softly. “Just say the word, Blue.”

She laughed softly, pressing a kiss to the back of his hand.

There had been no love in her end of the world.

She couldn’t wait to see what came after it.

GREY AWOKE TO A TAPPING NOISE AT HIS SIDE. Light streamed into his eyes as they opened them, and he squinted to see in the early morning sunrise. 

“Sorry to wake you,” came a voice, “but you can’t be parked here. Loading zone.”

Confused, he turned to face the meter maid, only finding more confusion when he found he could do even that.

He was supposed to be dead.

The thought crossed his mind that this could be some sort of strange afterlife, but it couldn’t be - he’d hated the jobs that he’d once done for his clients, but never enough for being parked outside of Laumonier’s townhouse to be his own private Hell. Grey gave a stretch, and the fact that he felt it further proved his point.

“Long night?” asked the meter maid.

Grey sighed. “You have no idea.”

“I’ll give you a minute to wake up,” they told him, and they went back to their job.

He was back in his truck, as if nothing had happened, though it had all felt so real.  _ A dream _ , he almost decided.

A scribble on his clipboard changed his mind.

There had been four delivery slips that he’d taken with him this week. For War, for Famine, for Pollution, and for Death. Three had been signed before, but never the last. Yet when he looked, the being’s name lay on the line in precise script, along with four words.

_ This one’s on me _ .

He let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

In his life, Grey had lived more than just one, grateful for each new chance he got, taking them for granted as soon as he'd gotten them. Yet it was clear as the rising sun that it had been a mistake to, and that there'd never be one to take in such a way after again. 

Taking another breath, he told himself to see it for the potential he'd been left as he glanced at the sheet once again, casting it aside. He turned the ignition, the truck waking up as he pulled it out onto the road.

He had a date to make good on.

VISITS BETWEEN MONMOUTH MANUFACTURING AND NINO’S became more and more frequent, the King and the Page and the Knight and the Ghost all falling into place together as though they were all of the same deck of cards rather than a dysfunctionally functional amalgam. 

“I always thought,” Gansey said one evening as they sat around the fire pit outside Monmouth, “That there would be some… Tangible answer about Glendower. Something so grand that would make everything fall into place.”

“Some things fell into place,” Noah offered. “And well… We did live, thanks to him.” Blue nodded sagely in agreement.

“We did,” Gansey said. “It was… Cathartic to have things connect. Like a path to where we are now.” Quietly, he put a mint leaf into his mouth as he searched for the words. “It just feels… Wrong to give it up.”

“It feels wrong to stop looking.” Henry chucked his straw wrapper into the flames as he put it into the cola can, sipping thoughtfully. “There was a lot there, and it feels weird to have it gone, because in a way, it’s not. Because it was like…” He thought for a minute. “It’s not like anything because it just... is. Everything was a part of it. Everything is.”

A silence weighed through the group, heavy but not unbearable, for what Henry had said was true and so there was little else to say.

“If everything’s connected,” Blue finally muttered. “Then is there a reason to stop searching?”

“I don’t think that there can be,” Noah agreed.

“You know…” said Gansey, and they all turned to him. “The forest that we ended up in. I had wanted to take a look at that one before… everything. It could be a good place to pick up.”

“No,” said Blue, smiling. “It could be a good place to start.”


	34. Act Six, Scene Six

### ACT SIX, SCENE SIX

NEITHER WAS MEANT TO BE IN EITHER PLACE. But when things go awry, people always search for something to blame. It may be something reasonable, such as the rain when one’s picnic is canceled or one’s rival when they sabotage one’s night out with friends. Other times, it may be less so - to blame the rain when one has slept in an hour late. But it is often giving things reason that keeps us sane in the long run.

It’s been known to keep Occult and Ethereal entities sane, as well.

THE TRIAL OF ADAM PARRISH was a quiet, outwardly-civil affair. After all, Heaven liked to have no blood on their hands, even if what would be spilled was not blood but something of a golden ichor. Regardless, it was something best if only the hands of a small few were sullied. 

Declan was there waiting as the Angel was brought in, corporeal form and ethereal bound to the chair all at once. The mechanic seemed almost calm, but something was burning bright behind his eyes, even in facing death, and the Archangel’s lips curled into a tight smile - one passable as a grimace. 

“I’ll bet,” he said to him, irony dripping from his voice, “That you didn’t see this coming.”

“I don’t see the point of all this,” drawled the Angel. “If the plan was going to end up going like this anyway.”

“Only They know how it would have ended up,” hissed a second Archangel - Uriel. “And you’ve ruined the Greater Good.”

“By preserving it?” the Angel raised a brow.

“By canceling it!” spat Declan. “This was meant to be it. The score was always meant to be settled. And now, it won’t be. Millenia of trying to restore the balance. All for naught. And that,” he explained with a gesture, “is why you can’t be around for any longer.

A Demon appeared - one that the Angel recognized as Skov - with a cone of glowing embers. Uriel stepped away again and again as he blew on them, spreading them in a circle upon the ground. They erupted all at once in a boiling inferno of Hellfire, flames spiraling high into the space above Heaven itself.

This, the Angel realized, was meant to be _his_ punishment.

“Get up,” commanded Uriel as the bindings melted away.

His eyes met Declan’s as he pulled the sleeves off his cover-alls, tying them around his waist as though to put off the inevitable extinction by keeping his arms a fraction of a degree cooler. Subtly, the Archangel nodded to him.

“Well,” said the Angel, nodding slightly as he stepped into the flames. “I’d say it’s been a pleasure, but I can see when the feeling isn’t mutual.”

He didn’t burn.

The Hellfire simmered like a blanket on a summer’s day; uncomfortably warm but not deadly so, and he closed his eyes in relaxation as his lips curled into a smirk.

“It’s worse than we thought,” whispered Declan. “Adam Parrish is no longer of our stock.”

To accentuate the point, the Angel blew the flames out towards the Archangels. Uriel jumped back in fright. He held back his laughter as his eyes met Declan’s. 

“Get him out of here,” decided the Archangel. “He’s not a problem we can take care of. Not anymore.”

Panicked, Skov waved the flames away into the ether.

With a nod of acknowledgment and a wink from Declan, the Angel began his descent from Heaven.

It hurt less than he remembered.

THE TRIAL OF RONAN LYNCH had become something of a social event in the Circles of Hell. After all, Hell is a place full of traitors and only the most unsavory of folk, and woe unto anyone who somehow managed to do something bad enough to fall out of Hell’s good - or bad, rather - graces.

Prokopenko was the one to lead the trial, seething with hatred and contempt behind the guise of bureaucracy, pacing in front of the people of Hell as though he ran the place. He didn’t, but no one dared to correct him - Not when such a satisfying sight was within reach.

“What is it that we think of the Demon, Ronan Lynch?!” he roared to the crowd. “The one who discorporated not one, but two of our own stock? The one who ruined the Great Plan with one bout of incompetence! The one who cost us our victory against Heaven once and for all!”

“Guilty!” the crowd bellowed back, and the bonds that kept the Demon from escaping grew tighter with every shout.

With a glare sharp as knives, Prokopenko grimaced to the Demon. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

He returned the glare back tenfold. “What is it you fuckwads have in mind?”

Proko let out a hoot of laughter as doors slammed open at either side of the room, each out of place in their own right. 

From one side came a dolly carrying a bathtub, grimed with dirt. 

From the other came the Angel Matthew, a pitcher of water in one hand.

“Long time no see,” the Demon told Matthew.

“Same to you,” he replied with a cheery grin, and he held the pitcher to Proko.

“You pour it,” he winced. “I know exactly what that stuff can do.”

“Okay!” said Matthew, and he tipped the pitcher into the tub and kept pouring, pouring, the stream never once stopping not breaking until the tub was full. It changed as the Holy Water was put into it, the dirt hissing away into nothingness as the porcelain was purified, now bright white against the murky backdrop of Hell.

“No chance I can change your mind, huh?” asked the Demon.

“Get in,” hissed Prokopenko.

“Then get this shit off me.” He pulled his boots off with a huff as soon as the bindings were gone, yanking his clothes off and tossing them away until all that remained was underwear and ink.

“Are you afraid of them getting wet?”

“They’re better than any fucking crap you have here,” he sneered. “It’d be a waste.”

And with a catastrophic splash, the Demon found himself in the tub.

The hissing that came with purification never came - only the horrified gasps of the crowd as the Demon wiped the water from his face, not a single scald in sight. He flicked the water off his fingers nonchalantly, looking to a dumbstruck Prokopenko and a somewhat-relieved Matthew.

“Are you just going to fucking stare?” He asked. “Let a Demon enjoy his bath. Or at least get me a towel, for Satan’s sake.” He snatched it away from Matthew as soon as it was miracled into existence.

“He’s… One of _them_ ,” gaped Prokopenko, disgusted.

“May They be praised?” tried Matthew, earning him a glare from all of Hell.

With a furious wave, Prokopenko sent Demons flying, corralling the population of Hell away from him, the Angel, and the Demon.

“What the Heaven are you trying to pull, you asswipe?” he grimaced.

“I’m not trying to pull anything… yet.” His eyes glowed with a certain blaze to them. “But if I can do this, you know I could do more. 

The Demon wiped the water from his face, tossing the towel aside. Proko yelled as he skittered away from it.

“What do you want, Ronan?”

“I want,” said the demon, “for you to leave me the fuck alone.”


	35. Act Six, Scene Seven

### ACT SIX, SCENE SEVEN

“THEY SHOULD BE LEAVING US ALONE FOR A WHILE NOW,” Ronan called as he trudged up the driveway. He refused to say that finally returning home to the Barns put a spring in his step, but there was certainly something in it that hadn’t been there before. His own image waited for him on the porch. It was uncanny, facing himself as if a near perfect mirror. If it weren’t for the book in his hand and the lack of holes in his jeans, he’d say it was a mirror. He wondered how Adam felt, seeing him with dirt blonde curls and an oil-stained tee shirt.

“No one’s watching?” he asked, glancing around suspiciously as he stood to his feet.

“Not unless short stuff isn’t in her room,” Ronan shrugged, offering his hand to the other. He took it and Ronan closed his eyes. There was a shockwave as he felt fabric shifting, a cool air against his head and the outline of wings crossing his back. When he opened his eyes again, Adam was there to meet his gaze, a smile gracing his face. He felt the corners of his own mouth turn up. Their hands stayed together.

“They didn’t hurt you, did they?” Adam asked softly.

“Far from it, Angel,” promised Ronan. “Would have been fucked up if they did, seeing as Declan made sure I got the warning.” His lips curled into his signature smirk. “I gave the Archangels a face full of fire for you.”

Adam snorted in laughter. “You missed Matthew almost blessing Hell.” Even Ronan couldn’t hold back a hoot of laughter.

“C’mon Parrish. Let’s go out,” Ronan decided. “If you’ll let me tempt you into it.”

“Is that a date, Lynch?” Adam raised an eyebrow, eyes shining brighter than any star Ronan had ever helped to make. 

“Are you ok with it being one this time?”

“We have all the time in the world for it to be one, Ronan.” Adam gave his hand a squeeze. “I’ve got a funny feeling our booth just got freed up.”

With a laugh, Ronan pressed a kiss to Adam’s forehead, and again to his cheek, and again and again until they were a tangle of laughter and hands in hair and an eternity of potential. 

As their lips parted, Ronan roared, “Opal, we’re going out!” and before anyone could blink twice, he and Adam were hurtling down the highway into Henrietta, with nothing but their dreams and lives ahead of them.

* * *

END OF UNCANNY OMENS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that you enjoyed Uncanny Omens! I really enjoyed working on it, so I hope that it was something you liked reading. Once again, HUGE thanks to my wonderful beta reader, [ghostangel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostangel/pseuds/ghostangel)and to the fantastic artists, DrawfulNeutral and [gthechangeling](http://gthechangeling.tumblr.com)! I couldn't have asked for a better team <3 Thank you for reading!


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